Hasbro Celebrates Monopoly Anniversary By Putting Real Money In The Game, But Only In France

When sitting down to a rousing game of Monopoly, one might daydream about opening the box to find the colorful fake money replaced with genuine bills. While that’s just a pipe dream for most of us, Hasbro – the maker of the iconic board game – is making it a reality for 80 lucky consumers…in France.

NPR reports that Hasbro France cooked up the idea of exchanging the play money for real, hard cash as a way to mark the game’s 80th anniversary.

Only one of the special games will come with a haul equal to the entire monopoly bank: 20,580 euros ($23,498).

The remaining 79 board games will include a variety of euro notes mixed with the standard, colorful Monopoly money.

“We wanted to do something unique,” Florence Gaillard, Hasbro France brand manager says. “When we asked our French customers, they told us they wanted to find real money in their Monopoly boxes.”

Gaillard says the operation to switch the fake money for real cash was carried out in secret at a small facility where the French games are packed.

While finding the special boxes will likely be a challenge, the company placed stickers on 30,000 sets of the game announcing they may contain actual money.

Additionally, Gaillard gave two hints to which boxes might contain the dinero: the real cash gives the Monopoly boxes a slightly different weight, and it makes the box bulge a bit.

For those of us who aren’t planning a trip to France to search for the cash-packed games, Hasbro will release a special 80th anniversary edition that includes a range of game tokens from the past, including a lantern and bathtub.

Not Just Monopoly Money: Some Games Ship With Real Cash In France [NPR]

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