Newest Monopoly Piece Just Announced

Breaking news from the world of Monopoly! Say good bye to your little toy iron and say hello to the newest Monopoly token, the cat! It all came down to the final hours of voting last night as the shoe, the wheelbarrow and the iron were neck and neck in the elimination process. The Scottie dog was the favorite out of the original tokens and earned 29% of the votes when it came to which pieces to keep

The contest to change one of the iconic game pieces all started on Facebook, where Monopoly has over 10 million friends and in a move to keep to game relevant, let the fans vote on which piece to kick out and who should replace it. The newest pieces we had to pick from included the cat, a robot, a diamond ring, a helicopter and a guitar, in which the cat won with 31% of the votes.

"We put five new tokens out for our fans to vote on and there were a lot of fans of the many different tokens, but I think there were a lot of cat lovers in the world that reached out and voted for the cat to be the new token for Monopoly," said Jonathan Berkowitz, vice president for Hasbro gaming marketing.

Fans from more than 120 countries got to voice their opinions and even some big name corporations stepped in to save game tokens that represent their products. Ames True Temper Inc. of Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, which make garden tools came out in favor of the wheelbarrow and even created a series of online videos to support the token. Online shoe retailer Zappos pushed to save the shoe.

"We've even had some companies like Jolly Time Pop Corn reach out and petition to have a popcorn token added to the game, even though that's not one of the new five tokens," he said.

The game tokens haven't changed much since the first Parker Brothers version of the game in 1935, with a race car, a shoe, a thimble, a top hat, an iron and a battleship being the original lineup with the Scottie dog and wheelbarrow coming along in the early 50s.

"I'm sad to see the iron go," Berkowitz said. "Personally, I'm a big fan of the racecar so I'm very relieved it was saved but it is sad to see the iron go."

Monopoly is modeled after the streets of Atlantic City, New Jersey and has sold 275 million units worldwide. And I didn't know this but there is such thing as a World Championship of Monopoly and you can check out the video of the final right here and it's not as boring as it sounds.