[3] The game was created to be a "practical demonstration of the present system of land grabbing with all its usual outcomes and consequences".

She based the game on the economic principles of Georgism, a system proposed by Henry George, with the object of demonstrating how rents enrich property owners and impoverish tenants.

She knew that some people could find it hard to understand why this happened and what might be done about it, and she thought that if Georgist ideas were put into the concrete form of a game, they might be easier to demonstrate.

Magie also hoped that when played by children the game would provoke their natural suspicion of unfairness, and that they might carry this awareness into adulthood.

[12] Robert Baron had Parker Brothers design its own version, called Fortune, before they began negotiating to purchase Magie's patents, in case the discussion fell apart or she sold to another potential buyer, Dave Knapp, publisher of Finance.

Magie then did two interviews showcasing copies of the original board, with The Washington Post and The Evening Star, to show that Darrow was not the inventor of the game.

[3] In the anti-monopolist or single-tax version (later called "Prosperity"), the game is won when the player with the least money doubles their original stake.

The published game included Chance cards with quotes attributed to Thomas Jefferson, John Ruskin and Andrew Carnegie.

[citation needed] The claims of Magie's second patent could not include those of the first (now in the public domain) and leaned more towards the single tax theory of play.

One common misconception is that Parker Brothers acquired the rights to Magie's original invention of Monopoly play and the unique design by purchasing the later 1924 patent.