McDonald's Monopoly

sbkline

sbkline

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Once again, McDonald's is running their Monopoly promtion. Undoubtedly, McDonald's has some kind of "rigging" in place so as to ensure that few, if any, win the big prizes. I've always assumed that, for each color group, there is one property that they only print a small amount of. For example, everyone gets Parkplace, but they only print 100 or so Boardwalk's. However, I was talking to someone in the breakroom today and she said that her husband used to work for a printing company which printed those Monopoly tags and put them on the cups. And she said that, according to him, McDonald's divides the country up into two sections (I'm assumming only two, but perhaps more I suppose) and that one section receives, for example, Boardwalk, while the other half gets Parkplace. In other words, at the printing factories, according to her, all the "Boardwalk" cups get shipped to one half of the country while the "Parkplace" cups get shipped to the other half. Or, I suppose it could be different parts of the world, since McDonald's has a large international presence. So I'm just curious if anyone has any information to support or refute what this woman said. Since there are people on this site from various parts of the country and the world, I'm curious which Monopoly pieces YOU have received so I can compare to mine.

I live in Illinois and here is what I have accumulated so far from my McDonald's stops:

Baltic Avenue from purple color group. So I am assuming my chances of getting Meditteranean avenue are pretty slim

From the railroads, I have all but Shortline

None so far from the light blue. Actually, I thought I got one a while back, but maybe I forgot to put it on my Monopoly board, and it's either still in my wallet, or has gone through the washing machine by now. :lol:

St Charles Place and States Avenue from the violet color group.

St James Place from the Orange Color group

Indiana Ave and Illinois Ave from the red color group

Marvin Gardens and Atlantic Ave from the yellow color group

Pacific Ave and North Carolina Ave from the green color group

ParkPlace from the dark blue group

Just wondering for those of you who live far from Illinois, which properties you have (if you are collecting), so as to determine the validity of what I was told in the breakroom today.

Do you think that there is one property from each group that they print very few of? Or is there something to what I was told today, that different "regions" get different properties so as to ensure that very few people manage to get a complete set? The problem I see with what I was told, if we're talking about dividing the USA in half, is that the line would have to be drawn somewhere and that wherever the line is drawn, there would be millions of people accross the country that would have access to a nearby McDonalds in the other "half" of the country and there could still conceivably be numerous million dollar winners. So maybe everyone in the USA gets Parkplace and everyone in England gets Boardwalk, etc.
 
tizzo

tizzo

Member
sbkline said:
Undoubtedly, McDonald's has some kind of "rigging" in place so as to ensure that few, if any, win the big prizes. I've always assumed that, for each color group, there is one property that they only print a small amount of. For example, everyone gets Parkplace, but they only print 100 or so Boardwalk's.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure if you're just joking, or what, but it almost sounds like you think that there's something wrong with this. What you describe is how games like this are run - indeed how they are supposed to be run.

If you really do think that they're doing something wrong by doing this, it might help to think of it this way. Monopoly is not a game you are playing against McDonald's, it is a game you're playing against other patrons. Most importantly, McDonald's is not playing the game. They are just facilitating it. It's exactly the same as with any other game of chance.

Scratch-off lottery tickets? They print a fixed number of winners and losers. It's a game of chance to the player because you don't know if your ticket is going to win or lose. But the state knows that they are going to pay out $X in winnings for every $Y (>$X) in ticket sales. Casino slot machines are programmed to a certain pay ratio. The casino controls exactly how many people win and how much they win for every dollar put in the machine. The only thing left to chance is who wins and who loses.

sbkline said:
However, I was talking to someone in the breakroom today and she said that her husband used to work for a printing company which printed those Monopoly tags and put them on the cups. And she said that, according to him, McDonald's divides the country up into two sections (I'm assumming only two, but perhaps more I suppose) and that one section receives, for example, Boardwalk, while the other half gets Parkplace. In other words, at the printing factories, according to her, all the "Boardwalk" cups get shipped to one half of the country while the "Parkplace" cups get shipped to the other half. Or, I suppose it could be different parts of the world, since McDonald's has a large international presence. So I'm just curious if anyone has any information to support or refute what this woman said. Since there are people on this site from various parts of the country and the world, I'm curious which Monopoly pieces YOU have received so I can compare to mine.
Click to expand...

I can't refute it, but I'm extremely skeptical, simply because in the scenario you describe above, there is some variation on how many winners there might be for whatever the "big prize" happens to be. Like I said, in a game like this the number of winners, at least for the biggest prizes, is deterministic. It has to be in order for the game to work. It's not about whether there are very few or very many people who could win. It's about knowing ahead of time exactly how many people can win.
 
dandaman

dandaman

Well-Known Member
I know that Canada has a different site to enter the online codes in, and I always assumed they were different regions of play anyway; because of this, I don't think that "England gets Boardwalk" scenario holds up too well.

Normally I don't venture a lot to McD's off campus, but my friends bring me back multiple game pieces since they know I'm the only one of us that probably plays. So far I've won about six free drinks (180 MyCokeRewards points) and I haven't even been to the Golden Arches since the game started. :lol:
 
W

wizards8507

Active Member
The first way was correct. A simple Wikipedia search reveals that one "rare" piece for each set dictates the odds of winning that prize:

The rare piece is alphabetically the last property in each group, except for Boardwalk, which is the last piece on the board.

I can confirm this, having worked four years in a McDonald's restaurant and a summer internship at the world headquarters.
 
plaz10

plaz10

Well-Known Member
I don't think that it's that the pieces are shipped far apart but that the piece that is alphabetically last is distributed in very small amounts. You can look it up online to see an approximate number of which ones are in high demand. Like Boardwalk...there are only 3 (approx.) available and millions of parkplaces. So the chances that those 3 pieces are a) thrown away or b) never get distributed are pretty likely. If I had to guess...I'd say an older gentleman gets coffee and doesn't even look at the pieces. Or the number of pieces on the cups/boxes thrown away come Nov 2. McDonalds certainly doesn't want you to find the pieces and they know what they're doing when they distribute a certain number of pieces.

Good luck finding a winner! So far just from casually eating there no more than usual I have a few free fries but no rare pieces. Happy Hunting!
 
Wilt Dasney

Wilt Dasney

Well-Known Member
Speaking of rigging the game...some guy did exactly that a while back. Between 1995-2000, an employee at the site where the game pieces were produced stole the most valuable pieces and passed them on to people he knew, and those people split the biggest prizes with him. They ended up "winning" millions of dollars worth.

It kinda ed me off to read about that, because that's around the time I actually played the game with any seriousness. I never really expected to win, but finding out after the fact that I had literally zero chance because of this clown kinda soured me on the whole promotion. (Plus I'm not big on their food anymore anyway.)
 
sbkline

sbkline

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
tizzo said:
I'm not sure if you're just joking, or what, but it almost sounds like you think that there's something wrong with this. What you describe is how games like this are run - indeed how they are supposed to be run.

If you really do think that they're doing something wrong by doing this, it might help to think of it this way. Monopoly is not a game you are playing against McDonald's, it is a game you're playing against other patrons. Most importantly, McDonald's is not playing the game. They are just facilitating it. It's exactly the same as with any other game of chance.

Scratch-off lottery tickets? They print a fixed number of winners and losers. It's a game of chance to the player because you don't know if your ticket is going to win or lose. But the state knows that they are going to pay out $X in winnings for every $Y (>$X) in ticket sales. Casino slot machines are programmed to a certain pay ratio. The casino controls exactly how many people win and how much they win for every dollar put in the machine. The only thing left to chance is who wins and who loses.



I can't refute it, but I'm extremely skeptical, simply because in the scenario you describe above, there is some variation on how many winners there might be for whatever the "big prize" happens to be. Like I said, in a game like this the number of winners, at least for the biggest prizes, is deterministic. It has to be in order for the game to work. It's not about whether there are very few or very many people who could win. It's about knowing ahead of time exactly how many people can win.
Click to expand...

No, I don't really think they are doing anything wrong, and I didn't mean to imply that they are. I just picked the word "rigging" because I couldn't think of the right word to use. I totally understand that McDonald's can't make any money off the promotion if there is the possbility of having lots of million dollar winners, so they have some way of ensuring that only one or two, if any, end up being winners.

I found it interesting what the lady at work told me yesterday, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that even in her scenario, there is still a good chance that there could be many million dollar winners. If one "region" gets Boardwalk and the other gets Parkplace, as she said, there could still be thousands of people who simply take a road trip and visit the McDonald's restaraunt in the other region, and then McDonalds would be screwed.
 
Wilt Dasney

Wilt Dasney

Well-Known Member
sbkline said:
I found it interesting what the lady at work told me yesterday, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that even in her scenario, there is still a good chance that there could be many million dollar winners. If one "region" gets Boardwalk and the other gets Parkplace, as she said, there could still be thousands of people who simply take a road trip and visit the McDonald's restaraunt in the other region, and then McDonalds would be screwed.
Click to expand...

Plus you can imagine truckers and business travelers stopping at McDonalds all over the country while they're working. That scenario just doesn't seem to hold up logically.
 

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