• Game Mechanics:  There are 3 chances to win for some purchases (and 2 for others) in the 2006 Mcdonalds Monopoly game, each with it's own odds and every angle is deceptively harder to win at then common sense would lead you to believe.
    • In Store Game:  Every time you purchase a Large Fry, Medium Drink, Large Drink, Hashbrown, Chicken Select or Premium chicken sandwich you are given 2 prize pieces.  There are 2 ways to win in store from these pieces, as well as additional chances in the Internet Game.
      • Instant Win:  An instant win prize says on the piece what it is good for.  Food Prizes can be collected in store, while money prizes have a number to call on the game piece to verify your claim.  There are 2 ways these prizes are distributed.
        • Randomly:  Most of the prizes are randomly distributed, any peices having the same chance of being an instant winner
        • Weekly:  Some prizes are distributed on a weekly basis (The $50,000 instant win prize is one of them).  These prizes are placed on a specific item, listed in store (for instance, only on Large Fries).
      • Collect to win:  Like the other Mcdonalds monopoly games, the big money is found by collecting a set of 2 or 3 peices to form a Monopoly.  However only 1 of the peices from each set actually has any value, as the others are common.  You will know you have found this peice as they are labeled with a 1-800 number that you will call to claim your prize.  See below for a list of what the rare peices for each monopoly set are.
    • Online Game:  Every game peice that you get in store has a 10 digit code on it, by going to Playatmcd.comand entering the codes (up to 10 per day) you are given more chances to win.  There are 2 ways to win in the online game.
      •  Instant Win: There is a fixed number of weekly prizes given away during the duration of the contest, these prizes are activated and a prechosen random time, and given away to the next person to enter a code.  The actual prizes in this contest change on a weekly basis.
      • Collect to win:  This method appears much easier then it is, the concept is every code entered lets you roll the dice, and to win you merely have to land on each property in a monopoly.  Though you are limited to 10 rolls per day, the properties you have collected do not reset.  The fix is in the dice roll, you will never roll what you need to hit a prize randomly.  In order to land on a winning property, the code that you entered from your prize piece must be one that has been predetermined as a winner in the online game.  (note: that does not mean that it is a winner in the in-store game, some in-store losing pieces have winning codes on them)
    • Best Buy Bucks:  If you order a Chicken Select or a Premium Chicken Sandwich, in addition to the two prize pieces you also get an instant winner Best Buy buck (good like a gift card except for purchases of single CD's or DVD's) which comes in $5 or $10 denominations.
  • My Analysis:  Given the odds and prize values stated by Mcdonalds I have calculated the stated retail prize value and Cash Value (assuming falsely that Mcdonalds allowed you to sell your prizes) of the prizes given away.
    • Assumptions:  I have made a few assumptions in this estimate in order to make some of the elements possible to calculate.
      • The online instant win prizes were not given odds because there is a fixed amount of them being given away per week and only to the people who enter codes online.  Therefore the odds of winning the instant prizes online are dependent on the number of game pieces that are actually claimed online.  I have estimated that 5% of the game pieces distributed will be claimed online for my calculations, however you can download the sheet and modify that percentage.
      • In the online instant win game more prizes are given out during what Mcdonalds estimated would be the peak hours of usage.  To factor this, and daily network traffic fluctuations into the odds of winning would be impossible without website traffic data, so for my purposes I assumed that time would not be a factor in the odds of winning an instant online prize.
      • The Retail prices listed for the PSP, Vegas Trip, and DVD system are close to their actual cash value, and inserting estimated "E-bay" or resell values into the equation for cash value had little effect on the outcome, so for all such prizes I used retail value as cash value.
      • As ringtones, phone games, snapfish pictures, and mcdonalds food have little cash resell value I assumed a value of $0 for all cash equations.
      • Mcdonalds specifies that for in-store food instant win prizes you are more likely to get a less expensive food product, however they do not show the ratios, so for the retail value of the food prize I assumed an average of the sum of all food prizes possible.
    • Data: All work was done using google spreadsheets, and used equations over hard coded values whenever possible so that it would be easy to review, download or modify.
  •  Summary Results:  For more detailed results see spreadsheet or do your own math.
    • Every game piece (if played online) has a retail prize value of $1.20 (making the retail prize value of a set of 2 pieces $2.40)
    • Ignoring food prizes and downloadable media, every game piece has a cash prize value of approximately 4 cents.
    • Every Best Buy piece has an adjusted gift/retail/cash prize value of $1.30
    • Purchasing a Premium Chicken sandwich nets you a retail prize return of $2.13

    • Purchasing a Large Fries, Hash Browns, Medium Drink or Large Drink nets you an $.87 retail return

    • Purchasing a Up-sized combo nets twice as much as any one item, in the same proportions as shown above $1.75 total.
  • Hints and tricks: Here is a list of hints and tricks I've compiled so far to increase your chances of winning
    • In-Store Game:  Remember, ignoring food prizes every set of two game pieces only has a real cash value of $.08, so buying hashbrowns just because it is the cheapest menu item with prizes isn't worth your allowance, plus all that fryer grease can't be good for you.
      • Premium Chicken:  The Best Buy deal seems to be the best thing going, with an average return of $1.30 per sandwich, the best buy bucks far outshine the average $.08 worth of prizes you will get from that same sandwich.  A $1.38 discount on a premium sandwich brings it down to costing about the same as the less savory Mcchicken (though it still ain't free)
      • If you just like to play the game, the most pieces you can get without going medium drink or hashbrown crazy is an Upsized Chicken Selects 3 piece combo, gives you six game pieces ($.24) and 1 best buy instant win ($1.30), and you get to play a lot.
      • Winning collectable pieces:  It's worthwhile (for the online game and fun's sake) to keep all your pieces, but don't get to excited unless you collect a rare piece.  This will be designated by having a phone number to call if you win on it.  But if you are just certain you've got a winner, check the chart below:

    •  Online Game: Seems you can't play more then 10 times in a 24 hour period, and because winning depends on having truthful and accurate information entered I wouldn't recommend trying to cheat the system.
      • There are more prizes given out during peak hours, however there is more competition.  The best bet is either logging in at the beginning or end of peak hours (12:00:00 a.m. EST and 7:59:59 p.m. EST.) or during some really odd hour, in the hopes of having less competition for the instant prizes.

 

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