Orana locals have certainly got into to the spirit of community participation in offering ideas for the upcoming Dubbo version of one of our most-popular board games.

Dozens of suggestions have been made to the “Winning Moves” group, who are currently vetting nominations for our very own version of MONOPOLY to be launched later this year.

Some of our most high-profile landmarks have all been put forward, Australian MONOPOLY Manager Louisa Grundy told Dubbo Photo News, but exactly which ones came up for mention, is a detail that she is keeping close to her chest…

“A number of local places have been ‘highly-nominated’, we’ve had well over 70 submissions for this particular version, which we then refine down, before we make the final decision,” Louisa said.

“But, before it is finalised, it is very much led by the nominations we have received from locals,” she added.

She revealed that, before nominations opened locally, she took a bit of a spin through the district, to get the lay of the land.

“I came to town to talk to businesses and have conversations on what we could include, and everyone was very excited.

“One thing I didn’t know about Dubbo was that you have your very own guinea pig competition,” Louisa said of the famed Australian National Cavy Show held locally most years.

She said local versions of MONOPOLY have proven highly-popular in other regional centres that have received the Hasbro Imprimatur.

“It tends to be a real occasion when we launch them, we have a photo of someone in Wagga Wagga coming out of a local store with eight copies,” Louisa said.

“The local edition will be coming out later this year, around October, just in time for the school holidays,” she concluded.

The world’s largest-selling licensed board game will see Dubbo become the sixth NSW regional centre to have our own edition after Maitland, the Central Coast, Goulburn, Coffs Harbour, as well as Wagga Wagga.

Monopoly is often cited as the best-selling commercial board game in history, with over 275–390 million copies sold worldwide since 1935, being printed in over 46 languages, and licensed in more than 113 countries.

“It’s great for a community and everyone loves to get involved, but it’s not necessarily on voting numbers who gets which spot,” a spokesperson for Winning Moves said.

“As well as the places on the board, some of the cards will also refer to Dubbo institutions; most places find it really fun to have an edition of MONOPOLY for their hometown,” they concluded.