This may get moved to “The Game Room”, but I thought I would start here.
Is there a way to predict which specific properties on a standard Monopoly game board are more likely to get landed on than others? It all seems completely random to me, but maybe there are patterns of dice throws that would favor particular properties for some reason.
Jail/Just visiting is the most common location, IIRC, and the squares on the half of the board between Jail and Go to Jail will be hit more often than those of the other half.
Remember that with two dice, your most probable throw is seven (1+6, 2+5, 3+4, 4+3, 5+2, 6+1). So the most commonly landed-upon squares will be those that are multiples of seven from the starting point.
According to this website, Monopoly Board Location Probabilities (Statistics, Frequency), the most landed on square (at least in terms of where you are at the end of your turn) is Jail, followed by Illinois Avenue, New York Avenue, Go, and then three of the four railroads.
Without some non-dice related effect, this will deconvolve into uniform pretty quick. The Jail opportunities is a much stronger effect. Also there are cards that move you to GO, a rail road or a utility. Even starting from GO, 7 might not be best becuase you can go to square 9 either by rolling a 9 or by rolling a 4 in one roll and then a 5 on your next turn. I found a pdf of a presentation for a Markov chain model and the resultant steady state probability.
The space where a token spends most of its time is Jail, especially if you count Just Visiting as the same.
In addition to the dice probability, you have to figure in the Chance and Community Chest cards that send you to another space.
Because tokens spend so much time in jail, the second and third sides of the board (between “Jail” and “Go to Jail” are generally landed on more than the first and fourth sides.
The most-landed-on space aside from Jail is Illinois Ave.
And on preview, I see other folks have provided links.
Incidentally, I did some brute force calculations years ago and figured out that the only space you CAN’T land on in one turn, starting from Go, is Mediterranean Ave. (one space forward from Go).
Great answers. Thanks everyone!
Oranges. Railroads. Light Blues can be useful early on. Reds, stab at the greens. My typical plan.
I’d guess that since Chance and Community Chest spaces can send you elsewhere those after those spaces would be affected, and from the first table it seems there is dip in probability of landing on squares 7 away from these spaces - minor, but there.
But interesting data.
Even though seven is the most likely single outcome, it’s still much less likely than getting something other than a seven. So this isn’t really the right way to think about the problem.
Many years ago I did a computer simulation on the HP9825A. My results agreed with the above. I was surprised that the 2 cheapest properties were also the least often visited.
Oh, and “in jail” is the most common, even if you don’t include “just visiting”.