[1][2] Monopoly is a board game which focuses on the acquisition of fictional real estate titles, with the incorporation of elements of chance.

[3] The Darrow family initially made their game sets on flexible, round pieces of oilcloth instead of rigid, square carton.

On these early round boards, Darrow included some of the icons (actually designed for him by a hired graphic artist) that the later Monopoly made famous, such as the large red arrow for "Go", the black locomotives on the railroad spaces, the faucet on "Water Works" and light bulb on "Electric Company" and the question marks on the "Chance" spaces.

[4] By 1934, Darrow started having the game printed on cardboard, and sold copies in long white boxes to Wanamaker's Department Store in Philadelphia.

After Darrow started to take orders from other Philadelphia department stores, Parker Brothers reconsidered buying the rights to the game.

A posed photograph of and a credit to Charles B. Darrow appear on the Parker Brothers stock exchange game Bulls and Bears copyrighted in 1936.

In 1973 Ralph Anspach, an economics professor at San Francisco State University, produced Anti-Monopoly, a game similar to Monopoly, for which Parker Brothers sued him.