On Friday, December 10, 1965, 25 Cheltenham High School students began the longest nonstop Monopoly game ever played.
According to local historian Chuck Langerman, the game began at 11:00pm on Friday and ended at 11:00am on Sunday, January 2, 1966. The mark of 540 hours (22 days and 12 of hours) surpassed the previous world record by two days, which was set by 33 college students in Wisconsin.
The students pictured above are, from left to right: Dave Starobin, Ray McKee, Margie McKenna, Marc Cohen, and Mark Frankel.
The trip to and from school was done with a magnetic board in a car. During non-school hours, the game was played at the home of one of the participating students. The students involved wore CHS Monopoly Team shirts. It wasn’t a school sponsored event, but Cheltenham High principal Dr. Edwin Keim not only sanctioned the marathon, but also gave the students permission to skip study halls to keep the game going.
To break the record, the students played in shifts around the clock. Dr. Keim formally cast the first roll to get the game under way.
The CHS record seems to have since been broken. According to Monopolyland.com, the National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York has an exhibit titled “Monopoly: An American Icon.” As part of this exhibit, there are some records for the longest Monopoly games…
- World’s longest Monopoly game – 1,680 hours over 70 straight days
- Longest Monopoly game ever in a treehouse – 286 hours
- Longest Monopoly game underground – 100 hours
- Longest Monopoly game in a bathtub – 99 hours
- Longest Monopoly game upside-down – 36 hours
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