Monopoly Live in London

Have you ever wanted to play Monopoly in real London with real cabs and real prizes? In 2005 more than 190,000 people played the game over the twenty-eight-day period.

To celebrate the seventieth anniversary of Monopoly, an updated limited-edition version of the classic board game was launched featuring London landmarks such as the London Eye and the Wembley Stadium. Traditional toy marketing was turned on its head for the revamped edition. To bring the new locations on the board to life, an enormous live game of Monopoly was created, using the real streets of London as the board and real London taxis as the playing pieces.

To take part in the live game, players had to sign up to an online version of Monopoly, choose from a selection of properties, place their houses, choose a taxi and then hit Go!

Eighteen London cabs were fitted with GPS devices and represented the playing pieces. As the taxis went about their normal daily business, they passed the locations featured on the board, and this data was fed back to the online game. Players made money when other taxis "landed on" their property, and lost it if their own taxi passed properties owned by other players.

Each player`s individual game lasted twenty-four hours, with the whole campaign running for a month. There were daily and weekly prizes to play for, and the winner of the top prize won a year of mortgage-/rent-free living.