Real Estate Agent Wins North Is Monopoly Champs

Real Estate Agent Wins North Island Monopoly Championship

Adrian Sutherland, (34) a real estate agent from Tolaga Bay won the North Island Monopoly Championship held in Auckland on Sunday (May 2), scoring a total of $22,762 in assets to win the title.

Rich Uncle Pennybags congratulates North Island Monopoly Champion, Adrian Sutherland.

First runner up in the tournament was Matthew Morris, a 28-year-old cook from Martinborough, with $19,951 in assets. Second runner up was 12-year-old Hayden Morgan from Auckland with $14,685 in assets.

Contestants of all ages travelled from as far as Hastings and Wellington to play in the North Island competition. Adrian Sutherland, who has played Monopoly for more than 30 years, believes he won the competition due to a combination of strategy and luck. “I roll the dice and just buy, buy, buy,” he says. “The competition was quite intense but really fun. I really didn’t expect to win, it feels really cool to be the North Island Monopoly Champ.”

First runner up, Matthew Morris, got his first Monopoly game for Christmas when he was just four years old. “I’ve been training for the last two weeks trying to play a few online games and physical Monopoly games each day,” he says. It’s been an amazing tournament, I’m quite overwhelmed to be going on to the finals.”

The South Island Monopoly Championships will be held in Christchurch on 16 May at Fairymead Heritage Park. The winner and runner-up from this event will join Adrian and Matthew in Auckland on 18 July where the winner of the New Zealand Monopoly Championship will be decided. The winner of the New Zealand Monopoly Championship will win a trip to Tokyo to play in the World Monopoly Championships in October this year.

The New Zealand Monopoly Championships are being hosted by Hasbro New Zealand, the manufacturer of the game in this country. Teresa Mitrovic, Marketing Manager for Hasbro says the North Island Championship was a huge success. “Family games like Monopoly are classics and its great to see the passion that people have for the game.”

Monopoly is one of the world’s most popular board games and is currently sold in 80 countries and published in 26 languages.

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