McDonald's Monopoly is Back!

In Canada, anyone who eats at McDonald's has probably noticed that the Monopoly campaign is back. For anyone who isn't familiar, this is where you collect monopoly stamps to win prizes. The top prize being a million dollars... But have you wondered what the chances of winning that million were?

(ix) Collect Park Place (#341) and Boardwalk (#342) to win a Prize of One Million Dollars ($1,000,000), payable $50,000/yr. for 20 yrs.
no interest). One (1*) Prize available in the Territory The Odds of collecting Park Place are 1 in 11; the Odds of collecting Boardwalk are 1 in 618,106,200; the Odds of collecting the potential Winning Combination (Park Place and Boardwalk) are 1 in 3,141,832,163

Source

1 in 618,106,163.... Anyone who remembers the falling satellite a few weeks ago knows that there was a better chance of it landing on someone...

The odds of anyone actually finding the winning boardwalk token are actually worse. If you consider that a large number of the game pieces will be thrown out by people who don't play or people who are just not interested spending the time to check them all.

This is a great ploy by the corporation to encourage people to eat at the restaurant. Good especially, for the kids that want to play the game, saving up the tokens... and because there are lesser rewards, like free muffins and sandwiches, people who win those will appreciate the game, but as for the top prize, you are better off putting down a dollar on your local lottery.

I am curious to know how much of an increase of revenue there is when the Monopoly campaign is being done. I have a feeling it offsets the cost...

Of course it offsets the cost. That is the entire purpose of a lottery or sweepstakes: Make money.

Full disclosure: I don't work for, or eat McDonalds food, ever.

Well all I can say to that is... I have Park Place if anyone has Board Walk we can split the winnings YAY!

I won a t.v. one time. The only other thing i ever won while playing was a free med soft drink. Never really followed up on that one...

my brother goes to mcdonalds allot he has won a bunch of free food and we have Park Place but we have never won anything good... Also mcdonalds is lame you can only cash in 1 food winning ticket per visit so to be smart we went there and both cashed in 3 tickets each by walking out the door and back in again

I think the payments come over time too, in installments.

Plus a tax of around 25-35% depending on where that takes your income?

Your chances of winning the lottery with 1 ticket, assuming there are 300 million tickets in play (usually not this high by a long shot) is better by a factor of 3.

ETA: $1 in lotto tickets isn't made of 15% "carcass" and doesn't make you fat, either.

Boncho.....good work, man. You have uncovered a conspiracy that needs to go viral.

McDonald's has obviously brought back their Monopoly game to distract the public's attention away from the fact their food contains ingredients that will ensure the Big Mac I buy today will still look fresh off the grill in the year 3027.


Edit to add:

I am outraged that their are no stars or flags for this thread! INJUSTICE!! Don't you people appreciate good investigative work by fellow ATS members?

S & F

reply to post by TinkerHaus

I think the payments come over time too, in installments.

I think lottery payments of any kind made to the winner in installments is totally bogus. People should get their full winnings immediately. Drawing out the whole thing takes away a person's right to squander all the cash within the first six months of being a lottery winner.....and I resent that.

I think the biggest rort is you get it paid over 20 years what is 50,000 going to be worth in 20 years? talk about screwing you over don't think you would really want to win it anyway.

I don't eat there, but my kids do from time to time. I personally don't care for the monopoly game because of incidents like these.

In 2000, the US promotion was halted after fraud was uncovered. A subcontracting company called Simon Marketing (a then-subsidiary of Cyrk), which had been hired by McDonald's to organize and promote the game, failed to recognize a flaw in its procedures, and the chief of security, Jerome P. Jacobson,[1] was able to remove the "most expensive" game pieces, which he then passed to associates who would redeem them and share the proceeds. The associates "won" almost all of the top prizes between 1995 and 2000, including McDonald's giveaways that did not have the Monopoly theme. The associates "netted" over $24 million

en.wikipedia.org...'s_Monopoly#Products_with_game_pieces

Wouldn't doubt if it still isn't happening.

Originally posted by TinkerHaus
I think the payments come over time too, in installments.

Correct:

...to win a Prize of One Million Dollars ($1,000,000), payable $50,000/yr. for 20 yrs. no interest).

reply to post by jam321


That is brilliant. I wonder who has won the prizes as of late?

(ix) Collect Park Place (#341) and Boardwalk (#342) to win a Prize of One Million Dollars ($1,000,000), payable $50,000/yr. for 20 yrs. no interest). One (1*) Prize available in the Territory The Odds of collecting Park Place are 1 in 11; the Odds of collecting Boardwalk are 1 in 618,106,200; the Odds of collecting the potential Winning Combination (Park Place and Boardwalk) are 1 in 3,141,832,163

reply to post by boncho


Boardwalk you say??? I remember getting a number 1 at Mcdonalds and getting a boardwalk, I stashed the tabs in my car by my ashtray.. OMG I am so going to take a look right now. If I hit it big I will talk to you all from my retirement home in a SHTF free zone.

Oh and thanks op for the info on the boardwalk.

theres only 30 million people in canada. out of that maybe 1-3 million eat mcdonalds.

so realistically, 1 in 3 million.

Originally posted by AllUrChips
I have reading railroad, st.james place, and boardwalk if anybody wants to trade any peices.

You do not have boardwalk....

Originally posted by randomname
theres only 30 million people in canada. out of that maybe 1-3 million eat mcdonalds.

so realistically, 1 in 3 million.

Under the assumption that all game pieces are sold, and checked?

Are they still doing it in the US? The last time I went was a week or two ago. I won some free food, and got one of the blue pieces...I am not sure which one it is. Which one is the hard one to get this time? I'm guessing Park Place, since someone posted that they had Boardwalk.

I am going to go out to my car and see if I can find my blue piece, lol.