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If Only It Were Real: New Monopoly Board Game, Based On HBO Drama 'The Wire'

ArtsBeat highlighted a too-good-to-be-true piece in The Poke., a British satirical website not unlike The Onion: "'The Wire' Monopoly Game." (Apparently, the HBO drama has been a big hit across the pond.)

The article "purports that Hasbro, the toy and game company, has joined forces with Mr. Simon's series about the wide-reaching tentacles of drugs and corruption in urban Baltimore," Dave Itzkoff writes.

You can check out the board here.

Gone are "Community Chest" and "Chance." Instead, there is "Re-up" and "The Game." Avon Barksdale and Marlo Stanfield each has his own corner.

"Hasbro spokesperson" Jane McDougall explains:

If you draw a "The Game" card you might for instance get "Prop Joe calls a meet -- go straight to Collington Square" or "Drive-By! You get shot. Miss a go" or even "Chris and Snoop are looking for you! Hide! Miss 2 goes."

Hamsterdam will cost you $9,000. The Greek Connect? $9,500. The priciest real estate includes Waterfront Development ($14,000) and City Hall ($20,000)

There are hazards, of course, just like in real Monopoly. Fork over $10,000 if you land on "Omar's Coming!" The Internal Revenue Service doesn't play around. If your game piece ends up on "IRS Investigation," that'll be $1 million.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

David Gura
Based in New York, David Gura is a correspondent on NPR's business desk. His stories are broadcast on NPR's newsmagazines, All Things Considered, Morning Edition and Weekend Edition, and he regularly guest hosts 1A, a co-production of NPR and WAMU.