After 71 Years Monopoly Turns to Visa for Help

After doing some market research Monopoly has decided that they should switch to plastic. Their findings are showing a growing trend towards the use of plastic currency like credit and debit cards. Debit card spending in Canada alone came to $137.4 billion dollars in 2005. That's a lot of money for just over 33 million people to spend without exchanging any physical cash.

When I first read that Monopoly had paired up with Visa I was upset because I thought they were now offering the option of credit card debt as a new game strategy. Picturing the millions of children soon to be playing this version of the game I had to read on, hoping my previous assumption wasn't correct. Thankfully the new version has only a Visa imprinted debit card. Better? I suppose, but it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. The idea of Visa sponsoring a board game that is intended for children 8 and up seems immoral. Shouldn't the makers of a children's board game be aware of the subtle effect they have on the future habits of their players?

I think perpetuating the growing family debt could be avoided if this powerhouse in children's toys would have delved a little deeper into their "market research". But who knows if Hasbro would have done anything different knowing that 40% of the families in America spend more than they earn annually. I would hope they would because with those stats, 2360 of their employees are in the same financial boat.