It’s likely not fun to play Monopoly against Riley Gibbs.
Years ago, the Squamish mathematician decided to study the best way to win at the ever-popular board game, and using something called the Markov process, came up with a way to strategically dominate.
Now he’s sharing his findings at the upcoming Nerd Nite on Sept. 3, at the Brackendale Art Gallery: Café & Culture Centre.
“After this talk, if you take nothing else away—go for the oranges. This talk will show why oranges are such good properties because of how frequently they’re landed on, how much it costs if you land on them, and what the payout is,” he told The Squamish Chief.
“If you’re playing with a bunch of people who don’t have a solid grasp of the game, you just have to go for the oranges.”
The Markov process is named after a Russian mathematician named Andrey Markov that describes a sequence of events and the probability of each event occurring. For Monopoly, it means that Gibbs can map out which properties are most likely to be landed on and most lucrative. His talk is based on an academic paper he wrote during university.
“Even before I did this research, I was already good enough playing with friends that they would half-seriously accuse me of cheating because I’d always win by a fair amount. It’s actually not super impressive to be super good at Monopoly, because most people aren’t playing to win—they’re playing to watch their piece go around the board,” he said.
“Games never end because people aren’t focused on ‘I want to win this game,’ they’re focused on surviving and playing with friends. But yes, I would say I’m very good at Monopoly.”
Gibbs first gave this talk in L.A. 10 years ago, where he helped organize Nerd Nites. He said the appeal often isn’t so much about the information being shared—it’s the enthusiasm of the person sharing it.
“It’s fun, and usually funny. People lean into the humour of going deep about some wildly esoteric subject, and you do learn some cool stuff. I remember things I learned about octopuses from when I was down in L.A., and I still share facts at parties like ‘did you know this about octopuses?’” he said.
In Squamish, he hopes people walk away with usable information.
“I’m not going to sit there and teach people how to solve a Markov process, but most people will walk away with an improved understanding of how to play Monopoly well.”
Tickets to Nerd Nite are $11.98 on Eventbrite. The show starts at 6:30 p.m.
For updates, follow Nerd Nite Sea to Sky on Instagram.
