Is Monopoly GO a Gambling Website and is it Legal?

Monopoly GO is as free-to-play mobile game rated “E for Everyone”, but it still has every appearance of being a gambling website.

Is Monopoly Go Casino Gambling?

There is little skill involved with the game determined by a roll of the dice.  And with each roll of the dice, more money is spent.

The game closely resembles a real money online casino.

Monopoly Go! is a 2023 mobile board game developed and published by Scopely for Android and iOS devices and based on the 89-year-old the board game "Monopoly" by Hasbro.

From Wikipedia:

Monopoly Go! is a single-player mobile board game video game that mixes elements of the classic Monopoly board game with some light mid-core mechanics. Monopoly GO! takes place in a mildly sociable environment. The player travels their board by themselves and starts out with ownership of every property.

A recurrent mini-game called Treasure Hunting is another aspect of Monopoly Go that allows the player to find hidden objects for rewards. Like other events, these mini-games are themed and only playable for a short period of time—usually a few days. All Treasure Hunts revolve around the basic gameplay of tapping squares on a grid to reveal objects. The player needs special tokens called "pickaxes" or "shovels" in order to uncover the squares.

VegasOnlineSlots suggests it is borderline real money casino gambling the features little in the way of any skill.

"Everything Monopoly GO throws at you is designed to get you to use your dice so that you run out and are tempted to buy more with real money. Gotta keep rolling to try to move up the daily tournament leaderboard! Gotta keep rolling to land on the corner spaces so that my points bar can hit that next sticker pack reward! That next sticker could complete an album and win me more dice rolls!"

Monopoly Go is really changing everything!

Monopoly Go is barely a year old but Redditors are suggesting the game as the new frontier in online gambling, not necessarily for the better however.

Here is what one Redditor had to say about the game:

Monopoly GO and the Time I’ll Never Get Back

Manny Luke of Medium isn't impressed either.

"My time with Monopoly GO started as all toxic relationships do. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Instead of catching up on my daily work, I was scrolling through Facebook. The ad reeled me in because I am fond of the classic board game. Immediately, my mind raced to those old games like Words With Friends, Draw Something, or Classic Chess. Games where you can play with your friends and make your move on your own time. I love these types of games and was thrilled to see that Monopoly had made one of their own. The only problem was, this was not that type of game.

"Monopoly GO is a social game where you can connect your social media accounts and “play” with your friends. You pick your token and Mr. Monopoly explains the rules. You get a certain amount of dice that you can roll, and by roll, I mean push a button and the RNG decides what numbers you get. Your little token goes through the Monopoly board and you get money based on what you land on."

Duke explains that pretty much every enticement is thrown at the player within the first few minutes.

"You see, in the early game, they tap into your dopamine reserves, and release just enough to get you into the next section. I finished the first board fast, and it introduced me to the game’s map. My token moved up and I could see the journey of boards ahead. The game rewarded me with 50 new dice, and I was back on my way.

"Monopoly GO’s progression system relies on the dice that you restore over time. You can roll one set of dice and move on, or you can activate the multipliers. If you set your dice to x2, then you’ll use twice as many dice, but you’ll get twice the reward. The more dice you have, the higher the multipliers can go. You can get up to x200 dice in this game (possibly more), and my eyes turned into dollar signs seeing that fake money counter go up.

"At about five boards in, I knew that there was nothing more that this game had to offer. I knew that it was a lame app designed to draw people in and entice them to spend money. But I didn’t care. I was sold before all of these things hit. I wanted to see what the different landmark animations looked like. I wanted to see what the different boards looked like. I wanted to surpass my friends and vanquish my enemies as I rose to the top.

"Monopoly GO rewards you for getting bigger hits in. You don’t just get money for participating. There are daily competitions where you are placed on a leaderboard. The only way to score on this leaderboard is to land on railroads, and steal from other people. So every time I finally took all of Sue’s shields out, it was like opening the dopamine floodgates and letting it rush through my whole system as my in-game cash pile, AND my position on the leaderboard rose.

"Perhaps you’re in a toxic relationship with an app right now. Take it from me: there’s nothing at the end of the rabbit hole. Sometimes the lesson is, and was before, and will continue to be, don’t do it again."

Thanks, I'm a Gambling Addict Now

Another Reddit insists the game is indeed real gambling, and addictive.

"This game has truly showed me that I have an addictive personality. The amount of money I have spent on this game in the last two weeks is absurd, but I know I can’t be the only one. I’m exactly the type of person this game wants to be geared towards. I want the rare cards to complete decks to get more dice, but in order to do that I have to keep rolling dice. When I’m out of dice I just buy more. It’s so easy because it’s not like I have to use actual cash for this, I just put in my Apple passcode and there goes the money. I’ve tried deleting the game and then I’m like well I have to get my free dice today. It’s awful. I just wanted to vent and see if anyone else has been experiencing this?"