A New Zealander has taken second place in a global competition to find the best player of board game Monopoly.

Geoff "the Nimble Thimble" Christopher's in-game bankruptcy to Norwegian 19-year-old Bjorn Halvard Knappskog came just 41 minutes into the four-player game.

Russian player Oleg Korostelev had earlier been ejected from the game after 20 minutes of game-time, followed by American Richard Marinaccio several minutes later.

When not putting plastic houses and hotels on the square board, Christopher works as a risk strategy analyst.

He won the trip to Las Vegas to compete after winning the New Zealand tournament in April.

This was the 13th world championships of the game, which take place about every four years. Monopoly was created in 1935 and had sold about 750 million copies.

- NZPA