Burgess Hill gets screwed over
with Monopoly vote result?
26th
September 2007
The fears of many Burgess Hill voters were realised yesterday
morning when the 22 locations that made up the new United
Kingdom version of the Monopoly board were revealed. Our
great town was nowhere to be found on the list. This led
many people to say "Its a fix!"
It's a conspiracy!
It was known from the start of the voting that Hasbro
were going to be hiding the live leaderboard in the final
week. The theory of Burgess Hill Uncovered, as shared
by many others, was that it would give Hasbro the opportunity
to adjust the leaderboard to their liking, with little
known locations being given the boot in favour of big
cities.
Liverpool had not featured in the top 22 at all during
the time that the leaderboard was visible to the public,
yet conveniently the European city of culture for 2008
made it onto the final board. The population of Burgess
Hill is approximately 28,000; the population of Liverpool
is in the region of 450,000. If you had to market a game
to sell as many units as possible, which location would
you rather have on the board, Burgess Hill or Liverpool?
It doesn't take a genius to work out what might have been
decided behind the scenes. Burgess Hill had occupied a
place in the top 22 from the start, Liverpool had not.
Dare I also suggest that Hasbro thought the credibility
of the game would be affected with an obscure location
such as Burgess Hill on the board, with a big city like
Liverpool deemed to be a better fit.
Cheating
cost Burgess Hill their spot?
On May 17th, Hasbro
did an audit of the votes so far and deducted what they
believed to be fraudulent votes from St Albans, Cambridge
and Burgess Hill. This deduction sent Burgess Hill down
from 4th place to 15th, However, Burgess Hill were still
comfortably ahead of 22nd place by some 4,000 votes.
News spread of the deduction, with the local media urging
people to vote more than ever to help recoup the lost
votes. When the leaderboard was hidden on 22nd May,
Burgess Hill was back up in third place with 42,820
votes, 22nd placed London had only 16,411 votes. With
only three days remaining to vote, did London and co
really triple their totals to eclipse Burgess Hill?
If Burgess Hill were perhaps disqualified from the competition,
then why are St Albans and Cambridge on the final board?
Ah yes, they are bigger and more recognisable than Burgess
Hill.
Click
here to see the full historical voting data
The public react!
Discussion is already
rampant on the 'Get
Burgess Hill on the Monopoly board' Facebook group.
Group creator Duncan Terry has likened Burgess Hill's
situation to that of the Cat naming scandal on Blue
Peter where the result of a viewers poll to choose a
name for the cat was overrueld by the shows producers.
Other members wish to contact the Sun newspaper, and
for someone with deep pockets to take legal action.
There is also a distinct feeling of being conned.
Even a resident of Haywards Heath contacted Burgess
Hill Uncovered to suggest "This is the biggest
scandal to hit Burgess Hill since Gametrader shut down!"
Have your say
Do you have an opinion
on what's happened to Burgess Hill? Do you have a conspiracy
theory of your own? Check out The
Burgess Hill Uncovered Message Board and have your
say.
Alternatively you can email webmaster@burgesshilluncovered.co.uk
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