(NEWSER) – It's been 80 years since Monopoly first made its way to France, and to celebrate, manufacturers are hiding 80 games with real money in a new printing of 30,000 sets. While 69 of the 80 will have five 10-euro notes and five 20-euro notes, and another 10 will have five real 20-euro notes, two 50-euro notes, and one 100-euro note, the jackpot game replaces every game note with the real thing—a windfall that totals $23,268. "It wasn't easy to get the notes; they had to be escorted discreetly," Hasbro France's brand manager said. The new sets were introduced yesterday, reports AFP.
Monopoly is available in 43 languages across 111 countries, adds the Independent. In France, 500,000 sets are sold every year, making this particular run of 30,000—which includes classic, junior, electronic, and "vintage"—valuable in and of itself. The operation to switch the notes was top secret, carried out in the small town of Creutzwald before the games were distributed throughout France. And while the weight isn't noticeably different between the sets with cash and those with play money, the lucky boxes do reportedly bulge a bit. (Check out how the game helped POWs escape during World War II.)
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