Sloan lawyer conquers path to make-believe riches
Wins Monopoly title and some real cash
You wouldn’t mistake Richard “Rick” Marinaccio for the legendary monopolist John D. Rockefeller.
The Sloan resident is better-looking than the late tycoon, and instead of plotting to corner markets, he works as a corporate lawyer in Amherst.
But today Marinaccio, 26, is the Rockefeller of board games, the undisputed ruler of Marvin Gardens, New York Avenue, the Pennsylvania Railroad and all else he surveys from the throne of America’s Monopoly king.
He won the Monopoly U. S. National Championship and the accompanying cash prize of $20,580 — same as the amount of play money at stake in the ever-popular board game — by accumulating properties during the four-round tournament held Tuesday and Wednesday in Washington, D. C.
The path to make-believe riches began in February when Marinaccio, who like many Americans first played the game with family members as a child, ran across a Web site about the national tournament.
He qualified for the online preliminary by answering a few questions, and wound up finishing third among 75 entrants. Tuesday night found him seated with 27 others at card tables in the main hall of Washington’s Union Station, where the first round got under way as rail commuters paused to watch.
Marinaccio went in with low expectations.
“I came here never having played the game with anybody but my family,” he said from Washington. “I was just looking to have a good experience.”
Once he won the very first game, he turned, well, greedy. “I felt I could do this,” he said. After three rounds he was the leading scorer and found himself at the final table with three fellow players.
The outcome was decided when Marinaccio’s closest challenger went bankrupt with an unlucky roll of the dice that landed him on one of Marinaccio’s high-rent green properties.
The new champ believes he triumphed “because I made friends instead of enemies, took good risks and got lucky with the dice a couple of times.”
Marinaccio expects to spend his winnings on his bride-to-be, fellow lawyer Asma Ahmed, on either their first house or a honeymoon trip.
But he’s not done with Monopoly just yet. He will represent the United States at the world championship in October in Las Vegas.
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