Presenting... American Criminal: The Great McDonald's Monopoly Heist
Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford
Pushkin Industries
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 17 February 2026
⏱️ 43 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This episode comes to you from American Criminal, the true-crime history podcast that takes you inside the minds of some of America's most notorious outlaws, exploring the dark side of the American dream.
In this series, host Jeremy Schwartz explores the scandal at the heart of the McDonald's Monopoly promotion. The chance to win a prize when you bought a burger was a massive marketing success, with McDonald's returning to the promotion for years. But what the company didn't know was that a man on the inside was rigging the competition and choosing the big winners himself.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. |
| 0:05.4 | I'm Jonathan Goldstein, and this spring, Heavyweight revisits some favorite episodes. |
| 0:11.2 | Yeah, I think I want to know why she made my life so difficult if she had some kind of thing against me. |
| 0:18.0 | Plus, we check back in with our guests to see what's changed in the years since. |
| 0:22.9 | How long has it been? |
| 0:24.0 | Things have transpired. |
| 0:25.3 | Yeah, the last 10 years. |
| 0:27.1 | Everything's changed. |
| 0:28.5 | New updates begin, March 12th. |
| 0:31.5 | Listen to Heavyweight wherever you get your podcasts. |
| 0:41.1 | Pushkin. |
| 0:56.0 | In 1987, McDonald's teamed up with the game of monopoly to launch a hugely successful marketing campaign. |
| 1:02.3 | Buy a Big Mac or a large fries, and you could win a prize, ranging from a free ice cream all the way to a million dollars. |
| 1:05.2 | There was just one problem. |
| 1:07.7 | The game was rigged. |
| 1:09.9 | This story comes to you from the True Crime and History podcast, |
| 1:13.9 | American Criminal, where host Jeremy Schwartz explores the dark side of the American dream. |
| 1:21.0 | Enjoy. |
| 1:33.9 | It's 1997 in Charleston, South Carolina. |
| 1:38.4 | Gloria Brown's in the kitchen cooking dinner with her friend Robin Colombo. |
| 1:42.1 | Gloria is enjoying spending time with Robin. |
| 1:45.5 | The two have known each other for a few years, but Robin moved away from Florida a little while back, and Gloria's missed the company. So when Robin |
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