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Boardwalk Brouhaha: Monopoly Enters Debit Card Era

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Killer Monopoly: Monopoly has given rise to many a family fight. You never want to be that player who's accused of collecting more than $200 for passing Go.

But more than a spat broke out in February 1991, when 26-year-old Marc Cienkowski of Bensalem, Pa., shot his friend Michael Klucznik, 31, through the heart with a bow and arrow.

"Cienkowski wanted to be the car rather than the thimble or the hat," the district attorney told reporters. The defendant eventually pleaded guilty to criminal homicide.

Anti-Monopoly: Between Dogopoly and Elvis-opoly, it seems like anything can be Monopolized. Hasbro, however, believes otherwise. The company has kept lawyers working overtime to ban unauthorized games. Most recently, it has battled the maker of Ghettopoly, a twisted version of Monopoly where "playas" build crack houses on Cheap Trick Avenue rather than hotels on Park Place.

Another anti-Monopoly game — this one is actually called Anti-Monopoly — is back in production. In 1973, now-retired San Francisco State University economics professor Ralph Anspach set out to beat Monopoly at its own game — and he nearly did.

Parker Bros., then owned by General Mills, sued for patent infringement, and the two parties spent the next 25 years in a legal battle that made its way all the way to the Supreme Court. An out-of-court settlement was reached, allowing Anspach to license the game.

After languishing for several years, Anti-Monopoly was reintroduced by University Games last year at the New York Toy Fair while Monopoly was celebrating its 70th anniversary.

Any coincidence, I'm sure, is unintentional, although I'm sure Anspach delighted in it. Either way, that's just business.

Buck Wolf is an entertainment producer at ABCNEWS.com. "The Wolf Files" is published Tuesdays.

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