Cluedo’s real victim? The tragic inventor who dreamed it up in a Birmingham kitchen during WWII and lost out on MILLIONS
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FOR six out of ten of us, Christmas would not be complete without board games. And in homes throughout the UK, millions of families will sit down to murder-mystery favourite Cluedo, which is 75 years old this month. In that time, around 150million copies of the game — in which players deduce the name of the killer, where the murder happened and what weapon they used — have been sold globally.
![[Anthony Pratt should have been a multi-millionaire after Cluedo went on to become the world’s second-best-selling game]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/mr-anthony-pratt-man-invented-956192821.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
But incredibly, the man who invented Cluedo and its famous cast of characters including Colonel Mustard, Reverend Green and Miss Scarlet, lost out on a fortune. Anthony Pratt should have been a multi-millionaire, because Cluedo went on to become the world’s second-best-selling game, after Monopoly and joint No2 with Scrabble.
![[9 Stanley Road, Birmingham, where Cluedo was created in 1943]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/birmingham-mail-stanley-road-kings-956193307.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
But he gave away the foreign rights to it for just £5,000 shortly before Cluedo hit the big time. Anthony and his wife Elva created the game in the kitchen of their Birmingham home in 1943 to stave off boredom during World War Two blackouts. Pratt was a talented pianist who played concerts for the rich and famous across Europe and the UK and on cruise liners before the war.
![[1992 saw a third outing of a Cludeo TV show spin-off]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/85d1a499-8b55-4d3f-a73b-1eefa4799274.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
At the end of each recital the aristocrats would finish off the evening with a murder-mystery game that would fascinate crime detective novel-lover Anthony. So when he went back to the West Midlands to work in a munitions factory, his mind kept returning to the post-piano fun.
![[American black comedy Clue hit cinemas in 1985]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/0e6d9af6-ac7c-4e49-96e9-cd923b4c89b9.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
