McDonald's Monopoly

The McDonald's Monopoly game is a sales promotion of McDonald's and Hasbro, which uses the theme of the latter's board game Monopoly. The game first ran in the US in 1987 and has since been used worldwide.

The promotion has used other names, such as Monopoly: Pick Your Prize! (2001), Monopoly Best Chance Game (2003–2005), Monopoly/Millionaire Game, Prize Vault (2013-2014), Money Monopoly (2016-), Coast To Coast (2015-) in Canada, Golden Chances in the UK (2015-), Prize Choice in the UK (2016-) and Win Win in the UK (2017-).

The promotion has been offered in the United States, Canada, Australia, Austria, France, Germany, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, and United Kingdom since 1987. Argentina and Brazil were included in 2013 as well as Ireland in 2016. From 2003-2009, Best Buy was involved in the U.S. version, and later in the Canadian version.

Like many merchants, McDonald's offered sweepstakes to draw customers into its restaurants. Laws generally forbid a company from administering its own contests, in order to prevent fraud and to ensure that all prizes are given away. McDonald's had a relationship with Simon Worldwide Inc., which was responsible for the distribution of the contest pieces and the awarding of major prizes.

In 2015, the Monopoly game was replaced in the US by "Game Time Gold", using an NFL theme. In 2016, the Monopoly game returned.

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. Chief of security Jerome P. Jacobson 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. While the fraud appeared to have been perpetrated by only one key employee of the promotion company, and not by the company's management, eight people were originally arrested, leading to a total of 21 indicted individuals. The relationship between McDonald's and Simon Marketing broke down in a pair of lawsuits over breach of contract, eventually settled out of court, with McDonald's' claim being thrown out and Simon receiving $16.6 million. Due to a constitutional violation, four of those convicted of the fraud were later released as they were not initially charged with the offense.

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