To explain to anyone who doesn’t know, McDonalds runs a prize promotion based on the Monopoly board game. The way the game works is that you get board pieces when you buy food (or send away for them via the mail for free as per the law) and if you match all the same color pieces, you win a prize. The gimick is, of course, that almost all the pieces are very very common except for one of each color, which is exceedingly rare (and that’s only after they discovered that the whole game was rigged in 2001). To see how rare, check this list: http://www.amazing-bargains.com/mcdonalds2006.html
Now, let’s leave aside that your odds of winning anything under this system other than the occasional free instant win cheeseburger are astronomically small: worse than many state lottery games (which have a lot more small prizes), a LOT worse than a slot machine. I think most playing any promotional contest knows this and they either just ignore it, or are marginally fooled into buying slightly more based on the magical hope of “hey, who knows.” That’s all ok of course, we’re all a little silly. But at least with this promotion, I’ve met way too many people that take it much farther…
The real idiocy here is what McDonalds actively promotes by giving out “boards” on which to collect your pieces: collecting any of the common pieces. Simply put, if you have any interest game at all, then the only strategy that makes any sense is simply to look at the list of rare pieces, and if the pieces you get aren’t on there, toss em in the trash. You can keep them if you please, but I get the sense from far too many people that doing so serves some purpose: gets them closer to winning. I’ve personally seen people get excited to get two of one color as if this meant that lightning was around the corner.
But the common pieces are so common that you can easily find more if you have any need to match them with the rare pieces (heck, if you get the rare piece for 1 million bucks, heck, you could simply buy out a McDonalds to get the other pieces… and the other pieces are so common that it would likely take only a couple of large chicken sandwhich meals to get them all): you can even simply buy them from other people for a pittance. Collecting common pieces is like collecting pens off the street in the hope that you’ll someday find a blank check for a million dollars. Simply put, it’s insane behavior brought on by people failing to recognize the implications of how the game they are playing works.
I stopped eating a McDonalds years ago, but when I used to go there, I always enjoyed the Monopoly game. I wasn’t under any illusions that I was going to win anything, but playing doesn’t cost you any extra, and it was fun collecting the pieces, even if I knew I wasn’t ever going to get a full set. I don’t see anything particularly sad about it. Just a harmless diversion while you choke down a McArtery Hardener.
But that’s the thing: the collecting thing is nonsensical. It makes no more sense than collecting pebbles in the hope that if you have two red ones, the next might turn out to be a gold nugget. Having two of the common sort of any color doesn’t bring you any closer to anything than having one or none. It’s like putting together a puzzle when you KNOW that half the pieces are missing, the puzzle consists of matching two colors together, and there are only like 20 pieces.
Seriously - I look at it this way. I go there, I get a meal. I get some pieces, which I stick on a board. I never go often enough to win big, but I get some enjoyment out of sticking the stickers on the board, i do. They don’t charge me extra, and it’s more fun to me than playing the Lotto. So I get something out of it. So - I don’t really care about the odds or think about them.
I suppose if you don’t really think there is any point to what you are doing, and you don’t buy more or change what you buy in order to get more pieces, then what I’m saying doesn’t apply to you. You aren’t taking it seriously. But some people do. Some people will actually buy a chicken sandwhich over a Big Mac, or get a large over a medium meal, to get more pieces per meal, when otherwise they wouldn’t have done those things. None of that behavior makes any sense at all. It’s STRANGE.
When I was in university, a friend of mine made extra coin as a manager at McDonalds. Him and his crew would steal boxes of cups, take them home, and rip off the monopoly pieces in hopes of winning. They had two of everything hundreds of times over but never won anything big. The did win hundreds upon hundreds of free hamburgers - which I’m sure they were thrilled about, you know, considering they work there and all.
What I do find sad is when I see people buying six or eight hash browns in hopes of winning something. Heck, I find it sad that people would buy six or eight hash browns for any reason.
(I haven’t been in a McDonalds in about 5 years so I cant’ be sure that still happens but it certainly seemed to be prevalent then)
Years ago (1984) McD’s ran an Olympic promo like the Monopoly one.
If I recall, you collected game pieces for each event. If the US took gold in that event, you won a big mac - Silver was a drink and bronze was fries (or something like that).
That year at the Olympics the US took around 80 golds, and 50 or 60 silvers.
I was flat broke at the time, but me and my friends ate a ton of free big macs.
That was a rather infamous debacle. McD’s got screwed by the Soviets when they announced they were boycotting the Olympics because they were in L.A. Without Soviet competition, the US practically swept the whole thing. They even referenced it on The Simpsons once.
I worked at McDonald’s at the time and being a punk kid, I stole a garbage bag full of those games. I’d then go to another McDonald’s to redeem my prize. I remember just stuffing myself with the crap and treating my friends to meals as well. The Simpsons riffed on this with a Krusty Burger in a flashback episode.
How can the odds of winning a US promotion in which there is exactly one winner be higher than the number of people in the entire United States? I can see how that would be the case depending on how they define things, but it seems like an odd way to define the contest. There is exactly one 1 mill piece. There is also 1 5 mil piece. Unless they are counting the possibility that certain people just won’t recognize or even look at their pieces… hmmm…
At least the odds are better now that the game isn’t criminally rigged!
