The cat was selected out of five possible new pieces presented in a poll on Facebook. (Steven Senne / AP Images)

There’s a Cat on My Monopoly Board!

Players pick a cat to be the game’s newest token

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The iron was the least popular piece in the poll and will be removed from the board game. (Mladen Antonov / AFP / Getty Images)

The world’s most famous board game now has a new piece. After the game had existed for almost 80 years, Hasbro Gaming asked players from all over the world to vote on a new token, or game piece. The winner? A shiny silver cat.

Players got to choose from five possible pieces: a robot, a helicopter, a guitar, a diamond ring, and the winning kitty. The cat won by a landslide, clawing 39 percent of the vote. Hundreds of thousands of voters in 180 countries chose the cat above any other option.

Hasbro will replace one of the old tokens with the cat. The company asked players to vote on Facebook for their favorite piece in a “Save Your Token” campaign. The token with the fewest number of votes would be eliminated.

The iron was the loser and will be retired from the game. It received several hundred fewer votes than the wheelbarrow and the shoe, which were also relatively unpopular.

"While we're a bit sad to see the iron go, the cat token is a fantastic choice by the fans, and we have no doubt it will become just as iconic as the original tokens,” says Eric Nyman of Hasbro.

The cat joins the Scottie dog as another animal on the board. The Scottie was by far the most popular of the current tokens, receiving 29 percent of the vote.

The original game had pieces that were different from the ones used today. Inventor Charles Darrow, a plumber from Pennsylvania, used charms from his daughter’s bracelet to create the first tokens in 1935. These included a lantern, a purse, and a rocking horse.

A STRAY CAT ON PARK PLACE

The winning token was modeled after a stray cat named Shadow, which was rescued off the street by one of Hasbro’s employees.

Shadow’s owner sent a photo of the black cat to the game designers, who agreed that the animal was very cute. Model makers even included the nametag that dangled from Shadow’s collar.

“Shadow recently passed away,” Nyman wrote in a letter before the new token was chosen. “[W]e are thrilled to pay homage to her by using her as inspiration for one of our potential new Monopoly tokens.”

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