A well-written and well-sourced article. I found it quite interesting. It's amazing how people seem to find a way around any regulation or control to satisfy basic greed.
Sure, it's all written down in the rules somewhere but it's an elaborate effort to disguise the actual odds of winning to get people to buy more cheeseburgers. You think you are 3 quarters of the way to a PT Cruiser when you are in fact barely more likely to get it that you were before you got the first three.
In reality there were millions of Park Places tickets in circulation.
Not that I thought I'd ever get the jet myself. It just didn't really stand out as ridiculous when a mere mountain bike required 2,750 points. A 24-pack of Pepsi was worth 4 points. So, you'd need to drink roughly 16,500 cans of Pepsi for the bike. Or 45 cans per day for a year. It all seemed effectively impossible to me.
But, somebody figured out how it could be achieved. That's amazing. I'd pefer they held Pepsi to their word on that one, but I would have settled for a big fine for marketing their product through lying to children.
It's generally overlooked for free fries but for real prizes you need an adult to claim them. Like teenagers that sneak in to a casino - they can win a few hundred bucks but if they win a big prize there will be a demand for ID, they'll be kicked out, and no prize awarded.
Kids can't be encouraged to gamble because they aren't going to make mature decisions.
The amusement park was a lot of fun.
exactly as likely
One thing I think is interesting is they allow employees to play but they have a different color for their tickets, which for consumers are handed out at the cash register based on certain items bought. I'm guessing this is to keep employees from taking a huge stash of tickets home at the end of a shift.
The coupons are sometimes alright. We've got a huge collection of small cans of tomato sauce and small boxes of tissues. The online second chance thing is mostly a scam too sadly. You basically win entries into a sweepstakes for movie/tickets or a cruise. You can win $5 Fandango tickets, but it's a royal hassle to redeem them. You can also win gas points, but I'm not sure they redeem properly. It takes hundreds of dollars of purchases to even get the single gas point on average.
The whole thing is mostly a waste of time. The other promotion they do where you can earn up points to buy cookware is a lot better. Got a decent pot and a usable knife out of that last time.
A lot of people think the lottery is the best way for them to achieve financial freedom.
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The game style (shrouded game pieces used to make winning combinations with a smattering of instant winners) predated the Monopoly branding by years, maybe a decade. We had several such games in the McDonald's I worked at in the 1970s, none with Monopoly branding.