How long do I have to collect rent in Monopoly?

Question

Player A lands on my property, and I'm not paying attention. The rule book states:

The owner may not collect the rent if he/she fails to ask for it before the second player following throws the dice

I always interpreted that to mean once Player B rolled the dice I was out of luck (i.e., Player A--who owes me money--was the first player and Player B was the second). But I can definitely see that being interpreted as giving me until Player C rolls the dice, being the second player to play after Player A.

Answer 1

Suppose the players are Anne, Bill, Charlize, David, Elizabeth, and Fred.

Anne rolls the dice, moves her counter and lands on Fred's property. Fred fails to notice.

The players following Anne are Bill, Charlize, David, etc. Bill is the first player following Anne, and Charlize is the second. So Fred must notice and request rent before Charlize rolls.

A specific scenario:

The first following player, Bill, now rolls the dice and moves his counter. Any transactions are processed as necessary.

The second following player, Charlize, now reaches for the dice as Fred notices Anne's counter and request payment. As the second following player, Charlize, has not yet thrown the dice, the request by Fred is in order and must be honoured.

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The question is now asked: "why the second following instead of first following player?"

Simply, to prevent a pair of players from sitting down and guaranteeing that the one in elder position wins. Under a "first following" rule, if Alfred and Betty sit down beside each other, with Alfred rolling first, then Betty simply must be very fast at rolling the dice to ensure that Alfred never pay rent.

Next game, Alfred and Betty switch places and Betty is guaranteed to never pay rent.

And so on. This is called "The Bum's Rush".

There are also more subtle ways to play it, where the younger hand rolls very quickly only at strategic moments in the game. Same effect, with only a very slight reduction in effectiveness.

Answer 2

If Player A lands on your property, you have until Player C rolls the dice to demand rent.

The 2009 Monopoly World Championship rules have an explicit example of this:

7. How long do I have to ask for rent?

In Championship Monopoly, you can ask for rent until the second player to your left throws the dice. This is to encourage good sportsmanship. E.G. Player A lands on your property, Player B takes a turn. You can still ask for rent. As soon as the dice leave Player C’s hand, you have missed your chance.

Of note, this was not always the case. Modern monopoly rules, such as this and this say:

The owner may not collect the rent if he/she fails to ask for it before the second player following throws the dice.

However, some older monopoly sets, such as this say:

If the owner fails to ask for rent before the next throw of the dice, no rent is collected.

The game likely changed to say "second player following" to prevent players from being able to move play artificially fast to skip rent payments, such as the process described by @ForgetIWasEverHere in this answer.

Answer 3

The ambiguous phrase only exists in some editions/versions.

The current rules use the unambiguous phrasing

If they don’t ask before the next player rolls the dice, you don’t have to pay!

(Current rules as per Hasbro)

Other editions have alternated between this unambiguous phrasing and the original phrasing. This is most likely due to oversight (or lack thereof), but a case could be made that this helps show which meaning is intended:

1972:

Note: If the owner fails to ask for his rent before the next throw of the dice no rent may be collected.

2005:

IF THE OWNER FAILS TO ASK FOR RENT BEFORE THE NEXT THROW OF THE DICE, NO RENT IS COLLECTED.