Ready to pass go and collect a small frappe, medium fries, a gift card to Walmart, $500, or a new 2011 Shelby GT500? Then you’re ready for McDonald’s Monopoly.
“While Monopoly is going on, I go there twice as much because, for some reason, I feel like I’m going to win,” Jeff O’Brien, senior, said.
As in years past, McDonald’s Monopoly offers prizes of all price ranges. The grand prize is $1 million, but there is a one in four chance of winning a prize.
“I’ve been doing [McDonald’s Monopoly] for four years, and have only won some fries because I bought a large drink,” O’Brien said. “It was the happiest day of my life.”
While O’Brien is satisfied with fries, some students have higher hopes.
“If I won the million dollars, I’d take a large portion of it and put it away, and spend the rest on college, a car, and personal benefits,” Travis Lores, sophomore, said. “I’ve come so close, I had like twenty pieces and I didn’t get anything. Very disappointing.”
Although Lores has not won anything yet, he continues to purchase McDonald’s food more frequently while Monopoly is going on.
“I have a friend that brings me McDonalds once a week and now it will be more often,” Lores said. “If anyone has pieces that they’re not using, please contact me.”
McDonald’s normal daily customer traffic, 62 million people, is greater than the population of Great Britain, according to http://businessinsider.com. While McDonald’s Monopoly is going on, however, the daily customer traffic might become the population of the world.
The basic rules of McDonald’s Monopoly are simple: the customer buys the menu choices containing the game pieces, peels off the two stickers, and sees if one of the two stamps or both of the stamps are an instant win or a collect and win stamps.
“My sister and I have been playing McDonald’s Monopoly since we were little,” Jamie Schubert, sophomore, said. “You basically just buy the items that have the stickers on them, and then if you get all of the matching colors you get some kind of prize.”
If the stamp is an instant win, the customer can go to the counter to claim their prize, usually free food. If the stamp is a collect-and-win stamp, as Schubert explained, the customer must collect all of the collect-and-win stamps for the Monopoly property.
“My diet probably gets a lot unhealthier,” O’Brien said. “I eat a lot more fast food and that’s probably not good for me.”
Other than buying the food in the hopes of winning, the game is also offered online at the Play at McDonald’s website, where participants can type in their game codes from collected stamps.
“McDonald’s Monopoly is really fun,” Schubert said. “If you go to McDonalds on a regular basis, you might as well try because you can win cool prizes like a free McFlurry.”