The first Monopoly game. In 1932, Finance was published through L. S. Ayres & Co. The name was changed to Finance for trademark reasons, the first publication of a game which had become a household phenomenon.Lizzie Magie first copyrighted the game in 1903, in slightly different form, under the name The Landlord's Game, and this game was made by hand in small quantities and was distributed mostly by individuals. At this time, the name Monopoly was first used to describe the game.Though slight differences appeared in regional play of the game, the game was remarkably similar to the modern incarnation of Monopoly. When Parker Brothers bought Lizzie's patent for $500, wanted to promote the Charles Darrow version of the game, they knew that it was not Mr. Darrow's creation.Layman had already published Finance. The game had been around for years. According to a Time Magazine article dated February 17th, 1936:'I wrote the entire rulebook for the game of Finance in 1931 (copyrighted 1932) and simplified the old game of Monopoly for manufacturing purposes...' --Dan Layman'Almost exactly this same game as played at Williams was put on the market in Indianapolis early in 1932 through L. S. Ayres & Co. The name was changed to Finance for trademark reasons... 'This was the only article published which contradicted what would become Parker Brothers' assertion that it had published the original Monopoly, and that Layman's version was a spin-off. Layman had forced the retraction by Time in 1936, when an article two weeks earlier had published an article titled 'Monopoly and Politics.' What was unknown to Time was that Layman had sold the game to a small games manufacturer, David W. Knapp, the originator of the popular 1930s game 'Krazy-Ikes.'Knapp was eventually bought out by Parker Brothers for $10,000--a significant sum at the time. But it was a far cry from the Millions in Royalties that were paid to Charles Darrow.Parker Brothers eventually published the game Finance, after simplifying the rules for easier play and marketing it as a separate entity. - BoardGameGeek