Blog
Making My Own Harry Potter Monopoly
Delving into my game
I wanted to document creating my own Harry Potter Monopoly, both for those thinking of making their own and also for nostalgic reasons (it was fun to make and it’s still fun to think about).
Design
I designed the cards and money from scratch. The Monopoly box design was slightly modified from someone else’s design, and I took someone else’s board and made extensive modifications to it.
Here are the modifications I made:
- Changed all of the properties on the board to my own, which included designing the images for every property
- Changed the ‘Go to Azkaban’ position to use a better dementor picture, which I designed myself
- Changed all of the properties on the board to use use the British wizarding currency (Galleons)
- Changed the number of Galleons you receive when passing Go to G200 (where G represents Galleons)
- Changed some of the property colours (I wanted it to be in line with Simpsons Monopoly, which, prior to making this monopoly game, was our family’s go-to Monopoly game)
- Resized the board to fit my own dimensions
I used Photoshop for all of the graphic design work.
Money & Tokens
I didn’t use coins for the money, but that’s definitely something that I might consider in the future if I’m able to purchase some or make my own with a 3D printer.
The following are the notes I made:
| Amount/Galleons | Witch/Wizard |
|---|---|
| 500 | Merlin |
| 100 | Dumbledore |
| 50 | Flamel |
| 20 | Moody |
| 10 | Bagshot |
| 5 | Gregorovitch |
| 1 | Beedle the Bard |
Coming up with what witch/wizard to use for which denomination was a very fun, creative process! I intentionally didn’t want to use Harry, Ron or Hermione. I wanted to think about which witches and wizards were most important in the actual wizarding world at the time of the trio. I also didn’t want to just use the same witches or wizards that were on the Chocolate Frog cards like Agrippa.
It was tough deciding who to feature on each note. Here is the reason behind choosing each wizard or witch.
Merlin: 500
Merlin is considered to be the greatest wizard of all time. The equivalent of a British Knighthood in the British wizarding world was the Order of Merlin First class. I know Dumbledore is popular, but it’s implied that Merlin was more so
Dumbledore: 100
It was a hard choice whether Dumbledore or Merlin should have taken the top spot. I tried to think about the wizarding world generally, rather than just the seven Harry Potter books. Dumbledore is definitely one of the greatest wizards of the modern era, so I think he at least deserves this spot.
Flamel: 50
I did consider choosing the established witches and wizards from the Chocolate frog cards (like Agrippa), but I felt that we didn’t hear much about those witches or wizards (the occasional reference to Merlin’s beard notwithstanding)
I chose Flamel because of his significant contributions to the study of alchemy; how many other people made a philosopher’s stone for immortality?
Moody: 20
There’s something about Moody that reminds me of Winston Churchill. It might be the film character, but I like to think I based this based on book canon.
I felt Moody could be an inspirational role model for future generations of Aurors.
Looking back, I may have included Moody as a lower denomination and chosen a more well-known worldwide figure.
Bagshot: 10
As the most celebrated historian of the 20th century, I think Bathilda definitely deserved a place on this list.
Writing this, it’s occurred to me that not many witches made the list. When designing the game, I tried to chose witches or wizards on a meritocratic basis. It’s a shame that we didn’t hear much about other notable witches like Bagshot. I think I also should have spent more time going back through the books to come up with a more even split.
Gregorovitch: 5
Why Gregorovitch and not Ollivander? I don’t know how long Ollivander lived, but let’s presume he is still alive today based on a Pottermore article that has since been removed (quote: “Mr Ollivander is arguably the finest wand maker”, not “was”).
While it can be debated who the more accomplished wand maker was, I think it’s better to award a position on a coin posthumously.
Looking back, I would have chosen a different witch/wizard for this position.
Beedle the Bard: 1
Beedle the Bard is to wizards what Aesop is to Muggles. Even though we didn’t hear much about Beedle himself, since his children stories were so popular, he felt like a worthy addition.
I still like that I chose Beedle. We know his children stories were well known in magical families, so it felt he reached enough prominence and deserved recognition for his literary contributions
I purchased some pewter and some other metal tokens from eBay:
- The Knight bus
- The Goblet of Fire
- Durmstrang’s ship
- The Mirror of Erised
- A Golden (it’s actually Pewter) snitch
- The Hogwarts express
- An owl
I’ll definitely add some pictures later (if I remember) because they’re pretty cool.
I also purchased the Harry Potter Scene it (1-8 films) just for the tokens. The tokens were rather flimsy and didn’t seem to be well made (unlike the Pewter tokens), so I didn’t end up including them in my game.
Properties
| Amount/Galleons | Witch/Wizard |
|---|---|
| Browns | Cupboard under the stairs |
| Browns | Hagrid’s hut |
| Light blue | Gaunt’s shack |
| Light blue | Shrieking shack |
| Light blue | The Hog’s head |
| Pink | The Burrow |
| Pink | The Leaky Cauldron |
| Pink | Number 12, Grimmauld Place |
| Orange | Forbidden forest |
| Orange | Shell cottage |
| Orange | Honeydukes |
| Red | The Three Broomsticks |
| Red | Weasleys’ wizard wheezes |
| Red | Borgin & Burkes |
| Yellow | Ollivanders |
| Yellow | St Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries |
| Yellow | Malfoy Manor |
| Green | Chamber of secrets |
| Green | Room of requirement |
| Green | Ministry of Magic |
| Dark blue | Gringotts |
| Dark blue | Hogwarts |
Other places on the board
- Community chest and chance cards become Charms and hallows cards, respectively
- Stations became common rooms for each Hogwarts house
- The ‘bank’ becomes ‘Gringotts’
- The ‘banker’ becomes ‘Head goblin’ (maybe I took this too far)
- Jail becomes Azkaban
- Utilities became publishing outlets:
- Daily Prophet
- The Quibbler
New rules?
I tried to introduce ‘No muggles rules’: using incorrect terminology (e.g. ‘banker’ instead of ‘Head Goblin’) would make you liable to pay a fine to Gringotts, but no one I’ve played with has ever been willing to abide by this rule :(
Reflections
- Felix Felicis and Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans would have been better because of their surprise element (you don’t know what to expect)
- More wizarding rules because Monopoly can get repetitive
- More charms and hallows cards (I think I made 30 of each) to add more variety
- I wanted to use coins instead of notes, like they do in the British wizarding world
- It might have been confusing that I called the bank ‘Gringotts’ and there’s a Gringotts property on the board. Perhaps Gringotts shouldn’t have been made a property?
- Common rooms instead of stations. I don’t like the sound of this anymore, it’s too cringey. Perhaps there’s a better set of four to replace them
But that’s the great thing about making your own game – be it Monopoly or something else. If you don’t like something, you can change it. You can adapt the game over time. I’d highly recommend this project to any hardcore Potterheads and ardent Monopoly players.
Alternatives
July 2026 update:
At the time, an official Harry Potter Monopoly didn’t exist. If it did, I would have bought it. Others had made their own version and I wanted to, too.
Now that I own the official Harry Potter Monopoly, I am glad I made my own. While I like the howlers and the token pieces, I prefer everything else about my own (I may be biased). I found the design of the official version to be low quality. It felt rushed at times.
I much prefer the non-movie aesthetic I went for.