My Personal Monopoly Go Trading Ethics

Declarations

This is going to sound "judgy," and I am sorry about that. However, please realize that some of my most reliable trading partners are predatory traders. The ethics described in this document are my personal ethics and I do not attempt to impose them on others. Whether or not someone is a "monopoly friend," has nothing to do with how they trade or if they share my ethics. Additionally, now that I think about it, I am a complete hypocrite anyway, and I will prove that at the end. 

To make things simple, I am going to refer to someone I trade with as Komerco. This is a personification, not a real person. 

What I want out of a trade is win / win, nothing less. 

My Personal Trading Ethics

If I am trading with someone, Komerco, for example, I want to make sure she is pleased with the trade, both now and in the future. She should never look back on the trade with regret. 

I do not want Komerco to learn more and remember how unbalanced the trade was. I aim to do balanced trades. 

I do trade stickers for stars, in both directions. I trade above or at market value. For five star cards I purchase, I try to pay 20-25% above market value. For fours and fives I sell for stars, I try to sell at market value. 

I do not do 2:1 trades or 1:2 trades (trading for stars being the exception because the cards traded then have no face value other than use for stars, such as three star cards and below). 

I sometimes do complicated trades and I sometimes broker trades for others. If I facilitate, broker or execute a trade, I am then invested. If the trade goes bad or if anyone is unhappy, or worse, scammed, I insure the trade on both ends. All parties I deal with will be pleased when the trade is over. 

I absolutely refuse trades where someone offers me a four star card for a five star card. It happens more often than you would think. I consider it a violation for me to do a "down trade," because the other party is either desperate for dice, or lacks understanding about the relative value of the stickers. 

I do not engage in any form of predatory trading. I do not try to get a superior one for a lesser one just because Komerco does not know something I know. Instead, I tell Komerco what I know, and then negotiate. I don't trade their rarest five star card for my very common five star card, just because they do not know any better. However, at the beginning, when no one really has anything, I would violate that rule and trade any five star for the rarest five star, for example. In the beginning, it really does not matter as much. It is not going to make them feel harmed. Otherwise, if someone offers me Monopoly Tunes for Melodic Haul, I tell them that Melodic often trades 1:1 and Monopoly Tunes 2:1 and I let them know they are trading the rarest card in the album for a common one. They usually do not trade after that. 

Monopoly Go is Not Just a Game

I am chess player. In chess, my only goal is to crush my opponent. I do not look for a win / win in chess. Each player goes in knowing this, wanting this and expecting this. Why? Chess is just a game. 

Monopoly can be played the same way, but not with the same effect. I am not competing with you in Monopoly. It is a game where you build and you are not expected to crush others to do it. We expect shutdowns, heists and such, which are all parameters that define the game and have little psychological effect. 

Predatory trading does not define the game. It can hurt the other person, make them feel duped, violated and victimized. 

At the extreme, if you scam someone,  you did not just win. They experience real loss of assets, something that meant something to them when scammed and continues to mean something to them a week later. It was not just a game event, but left them with a true sense of violation. Many people will cry and nearly all of them will lose trust, both in the game and in humanity. 

While basing play purely on greed is not scamming, it does have some of the same effects. Exploitation is not a con job, but it also is not pan-deterministic. No one playing monopoly has any obligation to play with altruism. It is a capitalist game with a fundamental design of dog eat dog built into it. When I started, I told people that my intention was to "be ruthless." I thought it was only a game and I intended to win.

So, why then, do I try to avoid being the dog eating the other dog? Because it harms the other dog and it did not have to happen for me to feel victorious. I do feel victorious. I can win without eating a dog, and for me that is way more fun than winning the other way. 

I have had well over 100k dice across accounts several times (I don't at the time of this writing). I have never exploited anyone. I have never used airplane mode or dice boosting (though I love, love, love trading with those who do and I am very happy they are on Discord). I got them by studying the game and cooperating with other players. 

I don't play to win. I play because I love the strategy games, and I came to realize that Monopoly Go is one of the most strategic games out there. I have found that cooperating with a network of people can be just as powerful as competing with them. So when you trade with me, I am not playing against you, but with you. 

Epilogue 

Now, while I don't engage in predatory trading, I do enable others who do, so I am mostly a hypocrite. I guess I am at peace with that. I just wanted to make the argument against predatory trading because I don't like it.

An example of enabling would be this: I have a trading partner that routinely gets five star cards for fours star cards. I give her 40 stars for five star cards. She ended up needing vault stars really badly. I donated a large number of stars to her. However, I also donated multiple four star cards because she needed those. I knew what she was going to do with them, and I still did it. Keep in mind, even if my ethics are somewhat hypocritical, the arguments I make in support of them stand on their own. They are either valid or they are not. 

Trading Network Plan

Here is an actual visual example of what I am about to discuss:

Problem: I have people constantly coming to me wanting to buy cards for stars or to put them in contact with someone who will sell cards for stars. I have contacts for this, but if I put them in touch, then I will have to compete with them for trades and with the current vaults only giving purple packs, these trades are hard to find. Additionally, the majority of them cannot pay stars in a single day, and because stars for cards trades are in such high demand, almost everyone requires you pay all the stars in a single day.

When I do find someone who has only golds and wants to sell fives, I recruit them as a trading partner. I send them 40 stars, which is currently about 10 stars above the market rate, and they send me fives. I don't have to find these rare trades. I tell them that I want a trade relationship, not a one time trade. This benefits them, as I pay above standard and it benefits me, as I have trusted and reliable trading partner. Once you have this, you can trade on credit and do not have to both be on Discord at the same time to trade, and no one has to worry about being scammed. They don't have to find a bunch of trades, which is time-consuming. I am there bunches of trades. It is convenient in many ways. 

However, sometimes there are no trades to be found, and sometimes there are more partners than I can take on, so I lose the potential partner. 

So, 

Problem A is: I cannot easily help people needing to trade stars for a five star card.

Problem B is: I lose potential partners because I do not have capacity to trade with them and then when my current partners albums close, I am left with no trades available. 

Solution: 

I establish myself as a trade bank. In my case, the bank's goal is to break even, not make stars or cards. 

It would work like this: 

When I find someone who is a potential trading partner, if I don't have capacity to get them in my network using the method I described above, I would pull them in anyway. I will call this potential partner Paul.  I would tell Paul that I am going to start sending him stars, and when I get to 40, the next five star card he gets is mine. I am prepaying for it. If he agrees, then  I would contact someone who wants to trade stars for cards. I will call this someone Peter. I would asked Peter to send Paul 15 stars.

Later, when I need to send Paul or another trading partner more stars than I have capacity for, I would call Peter again and ask for 15 more. 

The deal with Peter is that once he sends 40 stars (per my request), I owe him a five star card, payable immediately. Also, if he decides he wants to end the relationship, I would immediately have to refund any stars he had banked with me. 

In this way, I am trading well above my capacity, but I am not keeping the extra cards. They are just passing through me. I get all the contacts and I only pull Peter in when I am overloaded. I don't lose potential trading partners, which is good for me and Peter gets to trade stars for five star cards, even though he is not able to send all of the stars the same day, and may not be able to find the trades himself. It is a win/win/win. I win / Peter wins / Paul wins. 

If you want to trade stars for cards, for you, it is this simple: 

1. I would periodically ask you to send 15 stars to someone (or 12 or 9, or whatever you have when asked). 

2. you would take screenshots of the sends with the OK button to prove they received.

3. I would keep record of all stars sent, and you should as well. 

4. Once you reached 40 stars sent, I would owe you a five star card, payable immediately. 

5. Any left over stars would apply to the next card. 

6. You would never have to send anything when requested. How much you send would be completely up to you.

7. I would NEVER make profit on the stars. I am giving you a card for 40 stars and it cost me 40 to acquire the card. If, for any reason, I violated my standard (which is I pay 40 stars for a five, regardless of what the seller is asking for it), then I would discount the card to the person who received it. Of course, you would have to trust that I am actually doing that, but think of this way, if I were buying and selling at a higher price, you would still be getting what you wanted, a five star for 40 stars. I will tell you, though, I would never buy a card and sell it at a higher price, as that violates my personal monopoly ethics. 

One more thing: any trade I execute, initiate or broker, I insure. If I am involved in any way and anyone gets scammed or finds themselves in a dispute, I will make both sides happy with the transaction, even if I have to cover both sides. If you trade with me, you are happy with the trade, both now and in the future, which is another one my monopoly trading ethics. 

Addendum

I executed on this today. I owe someone 200 stars. Two days ago, I owed someone else 170 stars. Obviously, that is more stars than I can supply(though paying in three star cards, with a 50 card per day receive limit allowed, a person can only receive 150 stars per day). 

Their album is about to close and they are offloading their cards. They sent them to me, and now I have to pay for them. The trading network is allowing that to happen. These were prestige cards, hard to come by, and I paid 50 stars each. The in network trading partners are getting regular cards for 40 each, the 40 I paid. If not for them, I would have lost the trading resource getting me the prestige cards. 

Expectations: 

After starting this, I got more contributors than I expected. Some days, 15 IGNs will pay one creditor for a bulk trade. I have to have checks and balances so in case there is a discrepancy in what I believe was sent and what the creditor believes they received. In the event of a dispute, I insure the trade, so if it cannot be resolved I will go with whatever the creditor believes, even if I know it to be inaccurate. 

I log the date, the IGN, how many stars were sent and how many cards were sent. 

I need screen shots of the sends, as a second validation. 

After every send, I will send you a current log of all of your activity, so you have a proof of what happened, and I have proof that I told you what I thought the status was. 

From the spreadsheet above the contributor can see that I owe him a five star card and once paid, he will have a credit of five stars toward the next card. At any time, he can require a refund of any remaining stars. 

And I send something like this to the creditor (this is a real ledger): 

Why to Adjust the Multiplier with each roll

Assuming the rolls are random, or if not random, pre-rolled, but randomly so, then probability matters. You have a 1 in 36 chance of rolling a 2 or a 12, so you should never assume one of those will be rolled. However,  you have a 1 in 6 chance of rolling a seven, the most likely number. In addition. you have a 5 in 36 chance or rolling a 6 and a 5 in 36 chance of rolling an 8, so if you are seven away, and there are good things on squares 6 and 8, then you have a 14 in 36 chance of getting them. 

You rarely have a 50% chance or better of getting rewards (you can, in token events). However, you want to increase your multiplier when the odds are in your favor. 

Here are the statistical odds, assuming random rolls (a big assumption, I grant you): 

Note: with token events, it is critical that you adjust multiplier. With Railroad events, where you get 5 points in the main event for a railroad hit, it is critical that you adjust the multiplier. It is less critical with other events. For example, with corner square events, it may not be vital (though I adjust to 100 for a corner square seven away and I adjust to 1 most of the rest of the time. I do not target railroads in corner square events (unless I am starved for railroad hits). 

Note the accumulation. If you are 7 away from a point making square, then you still only have a 6 in 36 chance of a good hit, but ...

If you are 7 spaces away and any of the rolls 6, 7, or 8 are beneficial:

• Total probability = (Probability of rolling a 6) + (Probability of rolling a 7) + (Probability of rolling an 8)

• Total probability =  5/36 + 6/36 + 5/36 or 16/36 chance of hitting is highly favorable. 

One Last Thought:

For those of you who never adjust you multiplier, but just auto roll on max: 

You are using the same multiplier on this: 

Something that has no tokens and no shields is not likely to hit anything. If instead, you role with a multiplier of 1, and move to max when you have scenarios closer than this, you will lose dice far less often. Note that I used a token event to demonstrate this concept, not because I think it is standard, but because it is the most pronounced example. 

Note: If you have a possibility of striking three squares and get good things and two are shielded, then sum the odds of striking the three and then subtract shielded squares. That will tell the odds that the roll will go well. 

Remember: targeting 6, 7, or 8 alone is usually a losing roll.  If something good is on 6 or 8 only, then there is a 31 in 36 chance it will miss (terrible odds).  If something is only good on the 7th square, but bad elsewhere, there is a 30 in 36 chance it will miss, again, terrible odds. You have to add to the safe squares together to get the odds and see fi they are good.

Also, if two good things happen at once, such as a corner event that also has free parking dice on the corners (making this up), and if a corner is at 7, then that square counts as two hits, because though you will miss it, when you do hit, it pays twice, once in reward points and again in free parking dice.