Rich Uncle Pennybags

So, I've been playing a fair amount of Monopoly on my computer lately, doing very well at the two-player games and okay at the three- and four-player version.

Tonight I arrived at what seemed a bit of an impasse at the end of a four-player game where my Hat and the computer's Wheelbarrow had each acquired roughly half the board. From my estimation of rents, he was collecting a total of $2,000 for his properties and I about $1,650 for mine. This means for a random set of 44 rolls (not counting potential jailtime) he would pay me $1,650 and I would pay him $2,000. In other words, each turn would result in roughly an exchange of $350/44 = $8 in the computer's favor. I don't know what the average cost of a turn is given only the random non-owned properties, but in order for the game to efficiently end it would have to cost the average player money to roll the dice. Ignoring the swings of randomness, assuming an average payout per turn over the long run, I estimate it should take [($3,100 cash + $2,000 mortgages/buildings)/$8 =] 638 turns for him to win the game. Were I still in college I could maybe work out the probabilistic odds of either one of us winning, but given that the only outcome I'm interested in would be something like me winning in under 50 rolls appears extremely unlikely, I suppose I would have to logically forfeit any game with an evenly divided board unless the other player was basically broke, or I had some much more pricey monopolies.