Yet again, Sarasota County has found a way to turn its beaches, landmarks and beloved local institutions into real estate.

Monopoly: Sarasota County Edition will roll out in March 2027, trading Boardwalk and Park Place for a locally curated lineup of businesses, nonprofits, parks, beaches and other places that help define the county.

In other words: prepare for civic blood sport over which Sarasota County icon deserves the dark blue square.

The game's parent company, Top Trumps USA, is asking the public to send in nominations for places that should appear on the board. Suggestions will be accepted through mid-July, with the game expected to be finalized for production by the end of that month, says Katie Hubbard, a sales executive for Top Trumps USA. The finished game is expected to retail for $39.99.

Since 2020, Top Trumps USA has developed a line of official Monopoly community editions for cities and regions across the country, from Tampa and Fort Lauderdale to Detroit, Portland and Hilton Head. The company’s online catalog now lists dozens of place-based editions, each applying Monopoly’s familiar grammar of colored blocks, rent cards and property ambition to a local map. 

Sarasota County was chosen as one of a small number of Monopoly community editions Hasbro greenlights each year, Hubbard says. While some editions focus on individual cities, this one widened its lens after it learned that visitors and residents tend to experience the area as a connected sweep of beaches, parks and keys, not as a single city boundary.

“When people come to visit Sarasota, they’re not just staying in Sarasota,” Hubbard says. “They’re traveling around the whole county—to Siesta Key Beach, Lido Key Beach and Myakka River State Park and Venice Beach to go shark tooth hunting. So we were convinced pretty quickly that we should feature the county as a whole.”

That makes the assignment richer—and harder. There are only 22 property squares on a Monopoly board. The Sarasota County edition will need to distill an entire coastal county—arts institutions, beaches, historic neighborhoods, restaurants, parks, tourism magnets and civic fixtures—into a few dozen spaces and cards.

“We’ll have a handful of local shops, local restaurants, local hotels, local attractions, and we’ll have a handful of local beaches, local parks, local monuments,” Hubbard says, “so there’s a little bit of everything that represents your entire community.”

Public nominations won’t operate as a straight vote. Instead, Hubbard says, they’ll help the company understand what the community most wants represented. Longevity will matter, too. Because Top Trumps USA plans to create the Sarasota County edition only once, the company is looking for places likely to endure, rather than a business or attraction that may feel fleeting two years from now.

“We use the suggestion inbox to guide us in the right direction of what the community wants to see on this board,” Hubbard says. “At the end of the day, only 22 can make it in there.”

The Sarasota treatment won’t stop with the property squares. Hubbard says the four railroad spaces, Chance cards, Community Chest cards and play money will also be customized for the county. She has already noticed a few local quirks that could inspire the game’s smaller jokes, including Sarasota’s enthusiasm for roundabouts and the instantly recognizable lifeguard stand on Siesta Key Beach.

The game will not, however, come with a miniature circus wagon, banyan tree or traffic circle token. Under Hasbro guidelines for these special editions, Hubbard says, the four corner spaces—Go, Jail, Free Parking and Go to Jail—and the classic player tokens remain unchanged.

“That leans into that nostalgia of fighting over the dog or the race car,” she says.

The very idea of Sarasota County getting Monopoly-ized carries a certain comic edge. This is, after all, a place where land values, redevelopment fights and the emotional meaning of place are never far from public conversation. Now a board game built around acquiring property, collecting rent and bankrupting your neighbors will invite locals to debate, with great civic sincerity, what deserves to be bought first.

Monopoly itself has always had a more complicated history than its cheerful red logo suggests. Parker Brothers began broadly marketing the game in 1935 after buying rights from Charles Darrow, but the game’s roots trace back earlier, to Lizzie Magie’s The Landlord’s Game, patented in 1904 as a critique of land concentration and rent-seeking. The anti-monopoly lesson did not survive intact. The tiny metal tycoon did.

Sarasota County’s board will be revealed at a launch event in March 2027, with Mr. Monopoly expected to make the kind of entrance one assumes a cartoon capitalist prefers. Hubbard says the details of the reveal are kept secret until launch day and can involve an oversized board display (one recent unveiling included a 10-foot-by-10-foot vinyl version of the game). Sales will begin the same day, with local bookstores, gift shops, toy stores and businesses on the board given priority alongside online sales through Top Trumps USA's website and Amazon.

For now, Sarasota County residents are being invited to make their case. Should the Ringling Museum be a top-tier property? Does Myakka River State Park belong on the board? How about Newtown, St. Armands Circle, the Legacy Trail or the kind of local institution that never appears on a tourism brochure but would make residents say, yes, that belongs there?

The county has until mid-July to argue about it. 

Click here and select Sarasota County from the Monopoly Nominations drop down menu to send in your picks. Or email your suggestion(s) to [email protected] through mid-July.