--- title: Operation Inventor John Spinello Raises Money for Real Life Operation description: John Spinello sold the game for only $500 canonical: https://time.com/3543285/operation-inventor-john-spinello/ author: Laura Stampler article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-10-28T13:17:56.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:14:06.862Z og:title: Inventor of 'Operation' Needs Money For An Operation og:description: John Spinello sold the game for only $500 og:url: https://time.com/3543285/operation-inventor-john-spinello/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7139e9885965760e/69876303e20a875780a82b32/screen-shot-2014-10-28-at-9-08-20-am.png?branch=production&width=821&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 821 og:image:height: 462 og:image:alt: Screen Shot 2014-10-28 at 9.08.20 AM og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Inventor of 'Operation' Needs Money For An Operation twitter:description: John Spinello sold the game for only $500 twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7139e9885965760e/69876303e20a875780a82b32/screen-shot-2014-10-28-at-9-08-20-am.png?branch=production&width=821&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # 'Operation' Inventor, 77, Can't Afford Real Life Operation > Sponsored content. 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The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. by [Laura Stampler](https://time.com/author/laura-stampler/) ## Laura Stampler Oct 28, 2014 1:17 PM UTC  YouTube by [Laura Stampler](https://time.com/author/laura-stampler/) ## Laura Stampler Oct 28, 2014 1:17 PM UTC In an ironic twist of fate, the inventor of the famous board game [Operation](http://www.iloveoperation.com) is in need of money to pay for an operation. In 1964, John Spinello invented the classic children’s game, in which players attempt to perform “surgery” without tripping a buzzer, and sold it to a toy invention firm for just $500\. In spite of its great success, that’s the only money he ever received for the game. Now 77, Spinello can’t afford to pay $25,000 for an oral surgery. “John has had a good life, but has admitted to us that he is struggling to pay his bills and is in need of a medical procedure without sufficient insurance coverage,” his friends [Tim Walsh and Peggy Brown wrote in a crowd funding campaign.](https://www.crowdrise.com/helpfortheinventorofoperation) Walsh told [_The Huffington Post_](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/27/john-spinello%5Fn%5F6055174.html) that Spinello isn’t bitter about never receiving royalties for a game that has inspired everything from shower curtains to boxers to _Simpsons_ editions of the game, and has generated what he estimates to be $40 million. “John celebrates the game wherever he can, though his kids do give him a hard time in a good-natured way,” Walsh said. On top of the [crowd-funding ](https://www.crowdrise.com/helpfortheinventorofoperation)campaign, Spinello plans to auction off the original prototype in December to pay the bills. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3543285/operation-inventor-john-spinello/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3543285/operation-inventor-john-spinello/"},"headline":"'Operation' Inventor, 77, Can't Afford Real Life Operation","datePublished":"2014-10-28T13:17:56.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:14:06.862Z","description":"John Spinello sold the game for only $500","url":"https://time.com/3543285/operation-inventor-john-spinello/","keywords":["Newsfeed","society","Internet","Games"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7139e9885965760e/69876303e20a875780a82b32/screen-shot-2014-10-28-at-9-08-20-am.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Laura Stampler","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/laura-stampler/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7139e9885965760e/69876303e20a875780a82b32/screen-shot-2014-10-28-at-9-08-20-am.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Screen Shot 2014-10-28 at 9.08.20 AM","caption":"","creditText":"YouTube","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3543285/operation-inventor-john-spinello/","name":"'Operation' Inventor, 77, Can't Afford Real Life Operation"}}]}] ```