Voting Underway For Spaces On New Monopoly Board

The Rose of Tralee, Lisa Murtagh cast the first official vote for Ireland at the event, while back in Dublin, Miss Ireland, Blaithnaid McKenna, rallied the Irish nation to get behind the Irish vote.

Global games company Parker Brothers is launching the worldwide vote to find the 22 greatest cities in the world that should be included on the new Monopoly 'Here & Now: World Edition' board - and Dublin has been nominated.

Monopoly fans around the world can visit http://www.monopoly.com to cast their votes and help create the first-ever worldwide edition of the game.

Voters are allowed to cast their ballots for up to ten cities each day of the vote, which will be open until February 28th. The city that receives the most votes will be placed on the highest rent property traditionally held on the Irish board by Shrewsbury Road and more recently, on the new All-Ireland edition, by County Roscommon.

Bookmakers Paddy Power has put odds on Ireland being represented by Dublin making the board at 1/3 and for Dublin to achieve the highest rent position of 20/1. "This vote is about the passion of the Irish people. It's up to us to ensure that Ireland is featured on the board. And as was demonstrated only recently by the people of Roscommon, it's entirely possible that if Irish people at home and abroad vote everyday over the coming month, Ireland will have a good chance of featuring on the board", a representative said.

The twenty cities that receive the most votes will be part of Monopoly history as the first cities selected to be on the World edition game board. However, two spaces on the board will be reserved for cities that are nominated through a wild card vote. Any city in the world can be nominated for these property spaces, which means that Belfast and Cork might appear on the game board next to Paris, London or Dublin. The wild card winners will occupy the low-rent property spaces traditionally held on the Irish board by Kimmage and Crumlin and more recently, Donegal and Westmeath.

"Monopoly is the world's most popular board game and it transcends cultural barriers," said Helen Martin, global brand director for Monopoly brand. "More than 750 million people have played the game since it was first introduced nearly 75 years ago and its popularity shows no sign of slowing down.

"The final result of the Monopoly Here & Now: World Edition voting may be just as surprising as the votes conducted in each country," said Martin.

"Only time will tell how the vote will turn out, and we hope that fans will vote early and often for their favourite cities."

For more than 70 years the official Monopoly board has represented the most elite locations in individual cities. However, recently Parker Brothers invited fans of the game to help update the board in their respective countries to reflect what the game board would look like if it were created today instead of in 1935. The votes resulted in the "Here & Now" versions of the game in each country - with often surprising results.

In Ireland, almost 170,000 votes were cast and the people of County Roscommon proved to be the most passionate about their county winning the top spot.

The cities voted onto the final game board will be announced in August 2008. The new Monopoly Here & Now: World Edition will be produced in Hasbro's plant in Waterford and available in stores around the world in the autumn.