Speaker 1: Pushkin.
Speaker 2: In nineteen eighty seven, McDonald's teamed up with the Game
Speaker 2: of Monopoly to launch a hugely successful marketing campaign by
Speaker 2: a big Mac or a large frize, and you could
Speaker 2: win a prize ranging from a free ice cream all
Speaker 2: the way to a million dollars. There was just one problem,
Speaker 2: the game was rigged. This story comes to you from
Speaker 2: the true crime and history podcast American Criminal, where host
Speaker 2: Jeremy Schwartz explores the dark side of the American dream.
Speaker 1: Enjoy.
Speaker 3: It's nineteen ninety seven and Charleston, South Carolina. Gloria Brown's
Speaker 3: in the kitchen cooking dinner with her friend Robin Columbu.
Speaker 3: Gloria is enjoying spending time with Robin. The two have
Speaker 3: known each other for a few years, but Robin moved
Speaker 3: away from Florida a little while back and Gloria's missed
Speaker 3: the company. So when Robin called to invite her to
Speaker 3: visit for the weekend, Gloria was all for it. It's
Speaker 3: been a strange trip, though, Gloria was hoping to catch
Speaker 3: up with Robin one on one. She's been going through
Speaker 3: a hard time lately and it would be nice to
Speaker 3: be able to vent a little to her friend, but
Speaker 3: Robin's husband, Jerry, is just always around, which is making
Speaker 3: it hard for Gloria to really open up. She doesn't
Speaker 3: know this guy, and while he's got a certain charm
Speaker 3: to him, it feels like an act to Gloria, like
Speaker 3: maybe he's hiding his real personality beneath the surface. So
Speaker 3: as she and Robin finished preparing the meal and bring
Speaker 3: the dishes to the table, Gloria can't help feeling relieved.
Speaker 3: She's going home tomorrow. Sure, all of her financial troubles
Speaker 3: will be waiting for her, but at least she'll be
Speaker 3: free of Jerry. The trio raised their glasses in a
Speaker 3: quick toast, and then before Gloria has finished her first
Speaker 3: bite of food, Robin fixes her with an intense look
Speaker 3: and says she needs to talk to her about something.
Speaker 3: Neither she or Jerry have touched their plates yet, so
Speaker 3: Gloria senses this is important, like maybe it's the whole
Speaker 3: reason she was invited here in the first place. Trying
Speaker 3: to sound casual, she says she's all ears. That's when
Speaker 3: Robin starts talking about McDonald's, specifically their famous monopoly promotional game,
Speaker 3: the one that's been running for as long as Gloria
Speaker 3: can remember. She nods along, talking about the prizes she'd
Speaker 3: love to win, mostly just to fill in the quiet,
Speaker 3: while Robin lights a cigarette after taking a drag. Robin
Speaker 3: explains that the whole thing fixed. Those people you see
Speaker 3: on the TVs saying they've won a million dollars, they
Speaker 3: didn't win anything, They were chosen, and you want to
Speaker 3: know who chooses the winners. With a dramatic flourish, Robin
Speaker 3: points to her husband, him he's the one with all
Speaker 3: the power. Gloria's eyes widen as she listens to her
Speaker 3: friend explaining the scheme. How Jerry's been choosing all of
Speaker 3: the million dollar winners for years now. McDonald's does it
Speaker 3: this way to make sure that only good people win
Speaker 3: the money. They don't want anyone with an embarrassing criminal
Speaker 3: history or something like that tied to the company.
Speaker 1: Gloria odds that kind of makes sense.
Speaker 3: Then Robin says that they want Gloria to be the
Speaker 3: next big winner, if she wants that is. Gloria is
Speaker 3: feeling lightheaded. She's not even sure if she believes what
Speaker 3: Robin's just told her, but she really wants to a
Speaker 3: million dollars She can't even picture that much money. She's
Speaker 3: a single mom and making ends meet with just one
Speaker 3: income is tough. Now her friend's just offering her money.
Speaker 3: She gazes across the table, trying to find the words
Speaker 3: to answer Robin's smiling at her, eyes gleaming with excitement,
Speaker 3: But Jerry's smile looks more like a smirk. Makes Gloria
Speaker 3: think there's more to this than Robin's letting on, And
Speaker 3: suddenly she's wondering should she take the money or run
Speaker 3: for her life from airship. I'm Jeremy Schwartz, and this
Speaker 3: is American criminal. In nineteen oh three, amateur inventor and
Speaker 3: political activist Lizzie McGee put the finishing touches on a
Speaker 3: board game she'd come up with as a way to
Speaker 3: demonstrate the inequalities in America's economic system. The game invited
Speaker 3: players to move their tokens around a square board and
Speaker 3: forced them to pay rent every time they landed on
Speaker 3: a property they didn't own. She called it the Landlord's Game,
Speaker 3: and it developed a small but passionate following. Three decades later,
Speaker 3: heater salesman Charles Darrow played Lizzie's game at a dinner
Speaker 3: party with friends and saw it as a potential moneymaker.
Speaker 3: He took the Landlord's game, removed some of the criticisms
Speaker 3: of capitalism, and renamed it Monopoly. When his stolen version
Speaker 3: of the game became a hit, Charles sold the rights
Speaker 3: to Parker Brothers, who paid Lizzie five hundred dollars so
Speaker 3: she wouldn't try to defend her patent. The company also
Speaker 3: gave her a promise in writing to credit her as
Speaker 3: the game's inventor in all future editions. It was a
Speaker 3: promise Parker Brothers never fulfilled, denying Lizzie recognition for inventing
Speaker 3: a game that was becoming a staple in homes around
Speaker 3: the country. And while Lizzie McGhee's role in the creation
Speaker 3: of Monopoly was quietly smudged out, Charles Darrow went on
Speaker 3: to become an incredibly wealthy man who was lauded as
Speaker 3: an early innovator in the world of board games. The
Speaker 3: point I'm trying to make is that life isn't always fair.
Speaker 3: Lizzie did everything right. She created something new and innovative,
Speaker 3: she got a patent to protect her intellectual property. Then
Speaker 3: when someone violated her patent, she negotiated in good faith,
Speaker 3: and she still got screwed. Unfortunately, that's not the only
Speaker 3: time that the game of Monopoly was used to screw
Speaker 3: people out of millions. This is episode one in our
Speaker 3: three part series on the great McDonald's Monopoly heist.
Speaker 1: A man on the inside.
Speaker 3: It's just about lunchtime on May fifteenth, nineteen forty in
Speaker 3: San Bernardino, California. Brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald stand in
Speaker 3: front of their brand new restaurant, a small octagonal hut
Speaker 3: called McDonald's Barbecue. The air is full of the smell
Speaker 3: of slow cooking meats, and the brothers employees are at
Speaker 3: their stations ready to go. This McDonald's join isn't like
Speaker 3: most other restaurants. Aside from a few stools at the counter,
Speaker 3: there's nowhere for customers to sit and eat. Instead, people
Speaker 3: are expected to drive up and place their orders with
Speaker 3: car hops, young women in short skirts and majorrette boots,
Speaker 3: and then eat right there in their cars. Strictly speaking,
Speaker 3: this is not a brand new idea, but it's not
Speaker 3: the norm here in San Bernardino, so Richard and Maurice
Speaker 3: are nervous about how locals will react. Still, they're hopeful
Speaker 3: it'll be a hit. They're determined to make their fortune
Speaker 3: and the restaurant game. Maybe they'll make tens of thousands
Speaker 3: of dollars, they think, even more if they're lucky. Of course,
Speaker 3: these guys got no idea just how big their little
Speaker 3: barbecue join'll get one day.
Speaker 1: Forget thousands.
Speaker 3: The McDonald's name will one day be worth billions, and
Speaker 3: in about fifty years from now, the actions of one
Speaker 3: man will threaten to bring all of it crashing to
Speaker 3: the ground. Eight years after Richard and Maurice McDonald first
Speaker 3: open their drive up restaurant, they shut it down, not
Speaker 3: for good, though. By nineteen forty eight they were making
Speaker 3: three hundred thousand dollars in sales each year, which would
Speaker 3: be around four million with inflation. That's not bad, right,
Speaker 3: brothers think they can do better. They've noticed that some
Speaker 3: of their items have been a lot more popular than others,
Speaker 3: so they want to streamline things, less overhead, more customers,
Speaker 3: more money. When they reopen in December nineteen forty eight,
Speaker 3: they go all in on their real moneymakers, Hamburgers. They
Speaker 3: also replace their car hops with a cashier who takes
Speaker 3: orders at a counter plate. Silverware and dishwashing staff give
Speaker 3: way to paper wrappers and cups, and they replace their
Speaker 3: old kitchen with a new, hyper efficient layout, with staff
Speaker 3: working on an assembly line to churn out burgers as
Speaker 3: fast as possible. That way, customers can get their food
Speaker 3: just seconds after they walk up, then be on their way.
Speaker 3: It's a bold gamble to take a risk on a
Speaker 3: concept that discourages customers from lingering at the restaurant, but
Speaker 3: it's one that takes off, and before long, the McDonald
Speaker 3: brothers have turned their restaurant into a franchise, with the
Speaker 3: second location in California and a third in Arizona. Gradually
Speaker 3: they expand their menu to offer French fries and milkshakes.
Speaker 3: That's what brings Ray Kroc out to California in nineteen
Speaker 3: fifty four. He's a milkshake machine salesman, and he wants
Speaker 3: to know why one restaurant owns eight of his products.
Speaker 3: When Ray pulls up to the McDonald's in San Bernardino,
Speaker 3: he sees people lining up to order trays full of burgers, fries,
Speaker 3: and plenty of milkshakes. The number of customers impresses Ray, sure,
Speaker 3: but more than that, he can't get over the pure
Speaker 3: efficiency of the place how quickly they can churn out
Speaker 3: food for people like the McDonald brothers. Ray's keen to
Speaker 3: make a fortune for himself, and he's pretty sure he's
Speaker 3: just found as golden goose. He sets up a meeting
Speaker 3: with Richard and Maurice and convinces them to let him
Speaker 3: have the franchise rights. From there, he institutes a model
Speaker 3: of hyper efficiency, and every news store the company opens,
Speaker 3: not only will customers be able to buy their food
Speaker 3: and leave with it just moments later, they're guaranteed to
Speaker 3: have the same experience in whichever restaurant they visit. It's
Speaker 3: comfort when you're away from home. It's an easy meal
Speaker 3: when you're short on time. It's a shining example of
Speaker 3: American capitalism. By nineteen sixty, McDonald's restaurants around the country
Speaker 3: are grossing fifty six million dollars annually, and that's only
Speaker 3: the beginning. The company soon expands beyond the US, with
Speaker 3: stores opening in Europe, Asia, and as far away as
Speaker 3: New Zealand. But towards the end of the nineteen seventies,
Speaker 3: McDonald's is looking for ways to make their customers happier.
Speaker 3: In particular, they want the whole experience to become family friendly.
Speaker 3: It's a big shift from thirty years ago when Richard
Speaker 3: and Maurice wanted to get people in and out.
Speaker 1: As fast as possible.
Speaker 3: That kind of efficiency really lends itself to people looking
Speaker 3: for a quick bite on their own, but there's money
Speaker 3: to be made by enticing families to visit the restaurants too.
Speaker 3: In October nineteen seventy seven, the company rolls out a
Speaker 3: marketing scheme to do just that. They're called Happy Meals
Speaker 3: and you probably don't need me to tell you what
Speaker 3: they look like, right, food, drink, small, toy, bright box.
Speaker 3: It's not the first time toys are used to directly
Speaker 3: market to kids, but as sure as a masterclass and
Speaker 3: doing it right, obviously, the Happy Meals are a hit.
Speaker 3: Kids love the toys and with multiple options available, they
Speaker 3: have to come back several times if they want to
Speaker 3: collect the whole set.
Speaker 1: And for the next decade.
Speaker 3: It's one of the best marketing tools McDonald's has, and
Speaker 3: it's arsenal. But pretty soon they'll launch a campaign that'll
Speaker 3: make Happy Meals look like I don't know, child's play.
Speaker 4: With game enough Lee has come to life at McDonald's.
Speaker 4: Winnot Coca Cola, good lellion dollars collected my game pieces
Speaker 4: only instantly, So play Monopoly, do not pass goal, go
Speaker 4: directly to McDonald's.
Speaker 3: In nineteen eighty seven, McDonald's joins forces with another American
Speaker 3: icon for their first Monopoly campaign. McDonald's promises it's customers
Speaker 3: that they can win prizes that range from free burgers
Speaker 3: and sodas to new houses, dream vacations, and even a
Speaker 3: million dollars. All you have to do is collect game
Speaker 3: pieces inspired by the classic board game, complete a set
Speaker 3: of properties, and you win a prize. There are also
Speaker 3: instant win pieces that mostly give out low value items
Speaker 3: like fries and desserts, but there are some instant wins
Speaker 3: for the million bucks, just not a lot. The odds
Speaker 3: of pulling a million dollar winner somewhere in the region
Speaker 3: of one and two hundred and fifty million. People don't
Speaker 3: let the odds stop them. They flock to McDonald's in droves,
Speaker 3: buying the products that come with game pieces, hoping to
Speaker 3: hit the jackpot. The game is a massive success, and
Speaker 3: before it's even over, executives are already talking about bringing
Speaker 3: it back the following year. Now, what's really important to
Speaker 3: know about the whole thing is that McDonald's doesn't actually
Speaker 3: have anything to do with running this monopoly promotion. The
Speaker 3: people behind the scheme are a company called Simon Marketing,
Speaker 3: the same team who helped develop the Happy Meal. McDonald's
Speaker 3: knows Simon can deliver, so they're responsible for everything from
Speaker 3: start to finish. McDonald's contracts them to print the game tokens,
Speaker 3: send them to stores, and carefully disseminate the high value
Speaker 3: pieces across the country. That means that McDonald's corporate has
Speaker 3: no idea where the winners will be when the pieces
Speaker 3: turn out, well, except that McDonald's restaurants they'll definitely be there.
Speaker 3: In nineteen eighty eight, the campaign returns and McDonald sees
Speaker 3: a huge jump in sales during the months that it runs. Sure,
Speaker 3: they have to pay out millions in prizes, but the
Speaker 3: increased profits more than cover the expense. If customers want
Speaker 3: more tokens, they can buy more products.
Speaker 1: It's almost like gambling, but for legal.
Speaker 3: Reasons, it's not technically gambling. The game creates a feeling
Speaker 3: of excitement around the McDonald's brand, almost fifty years after
Speaker 3: the first barbecue stand open in sand burned Adino. It's
Speaker 3: more crucial than ever, that the company continue finding new
Speaker 3: ways to reinvent itself to stay on the cutting edge
Speaker 3: of the fast food industry. This does that for them
Speaker 3: every year, sometimes multiple times a year. It's not always
Speaker 3: Monopoly theme, but the basic concept stays the same. By products,
Speaker 3: get game pieces, collect set to win, and with every
Speaker 3: new version of the promotion they run ads featuring people
Speaker 3: who won prizes the last time, cars, vacations, jet skis,
Speaker 3: cold hard cash. Everyday. People are really winning these things.
Speaker 3: All they had to do was go directly to McDonald's.
Speaker 3: On the surface, it seems like there's no downside to this.
Speaker 3: People can go get a burger, some fries, maybe have
Speaker 3: a fun meal out with their family, maybe win a
Speaker 3: camcorder in new TV, and in the back of their
Speaker 3: mind there's that exciting thought that they might just be
Speaker 3: one of the lucky ones to find that million dollar
Speaker 3: game piece. For the first couple of years, the game
Speaker 3: runs exactly as planned. Everyone's got the same one to
Speaker 3: two hundred and fifty million chance of becoming an instant millionaire.
Speaker 3: But in nineteen eighty nine, one man will find a
Speaker 3: way to corrupt this incredibly popular game. He'll take it
Speaker 3: upon himself to say, see that no one in America
Speaker 3: will genuinely win those million dollar prizes ever again. It's
Speaker 3: the spring of nineteen eighty in Hollywood, Florida. Jerome Jacobson
Speaker 3: lies in the hospital bed, frustrated, kind of scared. A
Speaker 3: few days ago, thirty seven year old Jerry collapsed with
Speaker 3: a terrifying paralysis that affected his legs, arms, eyes, and
Speaker 3: respiratory system. His wife Marcia rushed him to the emergency room,
Speaker 3: and he's been stuck in a bed ever since, waiting
Speaker 3: for answers. Since he's arrived, he's slowly regaining the feeling
Speaker 3: in his limbs and his vision is coming back, but
Speaker 3: he's ready for this nightmare to be over. Beside him,
Speaker 3: Marcia asked Jerry if he wants another sip of water.
Speaker 3: He shakes his head head he doesn't want a drink,
Speaker 3: He just wants answers. Just then, as if responding to
Speaker 3: his prayers, a doctor walks into the room and announces
Speaker 3: that they finally got results back on their tests. Jerry
Speaker 3: shuffles in the bed, trying to sit up a little straighter,
Speaker 3: but he can't even manage that. Resigned to his discomfort,
Speaker 3: he tells the doctor he's ready to hear the worst. Slowly,
Speaker 3: she explains that he has Giambret syndrome, which means his
Speaker 3: body's immune system is attacking his nerves. It's a rare
Speaker 3: condition and there's no known cure, but it's possible to
Speaker 3: make a recovery with careful treatment and rehabilitation. Still, it'll
Speaker 3: be a tough road ahead, and Jerry's life will probably
Speaker 3: look different from now on. He might live with muscle
Speaker 3: weakness for a number of years, and he'll need plenty
Speaker 3: of support from his loved ones.
Speaker 1: Jerry's mind is reeling as he takes all of this in.
Speaker 3: He hates feeling like he's dependent on other people, like
Speaker 3: he's a All his life, he's just wanted to feel
Speaker 3: like he's in control, that he has true agency over himself.
Speaker 3: Now it sounds like he might never have that again.
Speaker 3: Jerry Jacobson was born in Youngstown, Ohio, in nineteen forty three,
Speaker 3: and he had a pretty unremarkable childhood. He grew up
Speaker 3: with a step brother, Marvin, who always seemed to get
Speaker 3: more than Jerry, more favors, more affection, more opportunities, but
Speaker 3: he tried not to let that get to him. One day,
Speaker 3: he'd leave all that behind. He had big dreams of
Speaker 3: getting a job that gave him plenty of authority and respect,
Speaker 3: and in his early twenties he enlisted with the Marines.
Speaker 3: Unfortunately for Jerry, his time in the armed forces was
Speaker 3: short lived.
Speaker 1: His heart was in it, but his body wasn't.
Speaker 3: He was discharged during basic training thanks to his high
Speaker 3: arches and persistent allergies he'd had all his life. It
Speaker 3: was devast for him to be told that he would
Speaker 3: never do a job he'd been dreaming about for years,
Speaker 3: but he didn't dwell in his misery for long. In
Speaker 3: nineteen seventy six, he pivoted enlisting as a police officer
Speaker 3: in Hollywood, Florida. It might not have felt quite as
Speaker 3: prestigious as the Marines, but it was a job that
Speaker 3: came with built in authority in a less physically rigorous
Speaker 3: screening process, and for a little while, things seemed to
Speaker 3: be going well for Jerry. Then, about a year after
Speaker 3: he was sworn onto the force, he injured his wrist
Speaker 3: on the job. It was so bad that he had
Speaker 3: to take extended medical leave. While he was still off work.
Speaker 3: In nineteen eighty, he started experiencing extreme pain in one
Speaker 3: of his hands, which soon developed into a creeping numbness
Speaker 3: and eventually the paralysis that landed him in the hospital.
Speaker 3: The diagnosis of Giamboret's syndrome is just one more blow
Speaker 3: that Jerry really doesn't need. He was already feeling pretty you,
Speaker 3: not being able to work, and now his wife will
Speaker 3: also have to take time away from her job on
Speaker 3: the force to care for him. After he's discharged from
Speaker 3: the hospital, Jerry goes home, where Marcia has to bathe
Speaker 3: and feed him every day and give the massages to
Speaker 3: help his recovery. But although she obviously loves her husband deeply,
Speaker 3: she doesn't let him wallow. She says he can have
Speaker 3: fifteen minutes to feel sorry for himself each morning, but
Speaker 3: then he has to get on with his life. Misery's
Speaker 3: no good here. With Marcia's support, Jerry shows clear signs
Speaker 3: of improvement, but it's obvious that he'll never be able
Speaker 3: to rejoin the police force. In nineteen eighty one, the
Speaker 3: Hollywood PD let him go, meaning that he's got to
Speaker 3: start over once again. After that, Jerry and Marcia decide
Speaker 3: that Florida has brought them enough bad luck for one lifetime,
Speaker 3: so they moved north to Atlanta, Georgia. By now, Jerry's
Speaker 3: recovered enough that he picks up some work as a mechanic,
Speaker 3: but Marsha's still the breadwinner. She leaves her police job
Speaker 3: behind to take a position as a security auditor for
Speaker 3: an accounting firm. Now, her new employers could assigned Marsha
Speaker 3: to any of their clients, but they just so happen
Speaker 3: to place her with the Dittler Brothers, a printing company.
Speaker 1: This sounds kind of dull, right, a printing company.
Speaker 3: Well, what if I told you that Dittler had built
Speaker 3: its reputation by printing things like scratch offs, lottery tickets,
Speaker 3: and promotional games for other companies. Huh, that suddenly seems
Speaker 3: more interesting. It's certainly a job that Marsha enjoys, and
Speaker 3: it's something she thinks Jerry is well suited to as well,
Speaker 3: so she recommends him for a role at the company,
Speaker 3: and soon husband and wife are working side by side. Unfortunately,
Speaker 3: the Jacobsons are not a couple who should be.
Speaker 1: Working so closely together.
Speaker 3: They get into a lot of little arguments on the job,
Speaker 3: which spill over into blow ups at home. By nineteen
Speaker 3: eighty three, they're divorced but still working together and like
Speaker 3: a X. Jerry takes his job with Dittler Brothers very seriously.
Speaker 3: He likes the respect to gives him the feeling of
Speaker 3: control he has keeping a handle on the firm's production
Speaker 3: of high value pieces of paper. In nineteen eighty seven,
Speaker 3: Dittler are contracted by Simon Marketing to create and distribute
Speaker 3: all of the game pieces for the new McDonald's marketing campaign.
Speaker 3: At this stage, Jerry's been with the company for around
Speaker 3: six years and is pretty high in their security team,
Speaker 3: so he's given the job of overseeing everything related to
Speaker 3: the monopoly promotion.
Speaker 1: It's a gig he loves.
Speaker 3: Being responsible for the integrity of this high profile partnership
Speaker 3: is exhilarating, and he's determined to impress Among the Dittler employees.
Speaker 3: Jerry gets a reputation for being a real pain in
Speaker 3: the ass with this monopoly thing. He starts checking people's
Speaker 3: shoes to make sure no one's smuggling game pieces out
Speaker 3: of the factory. He also institutes a rule that employees
Speaker 3: who transport the pieces aren't even allowed to use the
Speaker 3: bathroom alone. There will be no corrupting this game, not
Speaker 3: on his watch. Of course, making sure that hundreds of
Speaker 3: millions of game pieces remained under Dittler's control is only
Speaker 3: part of the job. The most important aspect, though, is
Speaker 3: taking care of the winning tokens, the rare property titles
Speaker 3: the customers will need to complete the set, and the
Speaker 3: big ticket instant wins. Those get an extra level of
Speaker 3: attention for starters. They're each printed using black lighting and
Speaker 3: feature tiny flaws in the text, a corner missing from
Speaker 3: the crossbar of the letter T, or a slightly crooked
Speaker 3: punctuation mark. That way, they'll be almost impossible to counterfeit.
Speaker 3: Once the winning pieces come off the printer, Jerry locks
Speaker 3: them away in a vault with multiple layers of security
Speaker 3: until the time comes for the prize draw. Now year's
Speaker 3: where things get more complicated. Before the start of each
Speaker 3: Monopoly campaign, a computer program is used to determine where
Speaker 3: the high value pieces will be sent. In other words,
Speaker 3: the winning tokens aren't just inserted at random into packets
Speaker 3: of other game pieces and then sent out into the world.
Speaker 3: What happens is this program will randomly select the location
Speaker 3: of another printing shop that makes McDonald's packaging, and that's
Speaker 3: where the pieces will be sent so in theory, Simon
Speaker 3: Marketing and Dittler Brothers will know what areas winners will
Speaker 3: come from ahead of time because they're the ones bringing
Speaker 3: the pieces there, and because these game pieces are so valuable,
Speaker 3: Jerry doesn't trust just anyone to bring them to their
Speaker 3: final destination. No, no, it's a job you only trust
Speaker 3: one person with himself. So when it's time to send
Speaker 3: the pieces out into the wild, Jerry and an independent
Speaker 3: auditor insert a winner into an envelope with a bunch
Speaker 3: of regular game pieces. The envelope is then sealed using
Speaker 3: a tamper proof holographic sticker. If anyone opens the envelope,
Speaker 3: the broken sticker will be a dead giveaway. And these
Speaker 3: stickers are specially created by another company just for this campaign,
Speaker 3: so it's not like someone can buy extra to stage
Speaker 3: some kind of heist anyway. Jerry and this auditor locked
Speaker 3: the envelope into a briefcase with the combination opening. He
Speaker 3: chooses the code for one side, she chooses the code
Speaker 3: for the other. There's no way for one of them
Speaker 3: to get into it without the other being there. Then
Speaker 3: they board a plane together. Jerry's got the briefcase handcuffed
Speaker 3: to his wrist. Then they fly to the airport closest
Speaker 3: to the chosen factory. Once they get there, Jerry and
Speaker 3: the auditor open the briefcase in front of all the employees.
Speaker 3: Then Jerry makes a big show of opening the envelope
Speaker 3: and carefully inserting the pieces into the packs that will
Speaker 3: be sent to the nearby distribution points. The dozen or
Speaker 3: so extra pieces are there to make sure that no
Speaker 3: one can track whichbox contains a winner. Like I said,
Speaker 3: it's a complicated process, but it's one that Jerry takes
Speaker 3: a lot of pride in and it's a role he's
Speaker 3: well compensated for. In nineteen eighty eight, Simon Marketing hire
Speaker 3: him away from Dittler Brothers to be their head of security.
Speaker 3: There he earns four maybe five times what he'd be
Speaker 3: making as a cop, which is nice, but it's not
Speaker 3: just the money. He likes getting the travel regular and
Speaker 3: quickly he becomes obsessed with getting gold status.
Speaker 1: With his airline miles.
Speaker 3: On board the plane, he has a habit of flashing
Speaker 3: his old police badge around when people ask him about
Speaker 3: the briefcase chain to his arm. It all feels like
Speaker 3: he's won at length last. After a lifetime of setback
Speaker 3: after setback, Jerry's finally found where he's supposed to be.
Speaker 3: He's got money, job, satisfaction, and the kind of authority
Speaker 3: he's been searching for for years. Under his watchful ee,
Speaker 3: the first couple of monopoly campaigns go off without a hitch.
Speaker 3: Sales at McDonald's go up, customers win millions of dollars
Speaker 3: worth of prizes, and everyone's happy. The employees at Simon
Speaker 3: Marketing and Dentler Brothers pat themselves on the back for
Speaker 3: a job well done. And at the center of it
Speaker 3: all is Jerry Jacobson. But despite his outward commitment to
Speaker 3: rules and integrity, Jerry's far from perfect, and soon enough,
Speaker 3: the temptation to cheat the system will prove too great
Speaker 3: to resist. It's the summer of nineteen eighty nine and
Speaker 3: forty six year old Jerry Jacobson is just arriving at
Speaker 3: a family barbecue. He walks inside his cousin's house and
Speaker 3: heads straight to the kitchen so he can put his
Speaker 3: beers in the fridge. Then, after making the rounds to
Speaker 3: say hello to his relatives, he heads back out to
Speaker 3: find his brother. Technically, Marvin Braun is Jerry's stepbrother, which
Speaker 3: is important for the purposes of this story. Jerry finds
Speaker 3: Marvin by the grill and pulls him aside. They need
Speaker 3: to talk, he says, and he leads Marvin away from
Speaker 3: the noise to a secluded spot in the backyard. Once
Speaker 3: they're alone, Jerry thrusts a hand into his pocket and
Speaker 3: pulls out a small plastic bag. He hands it to Marvin,
Speaker 3: who inspects it. Inside is a single game piece from
Speaker 3: the latest MacDonald's Monopoly promotion. But unlike most of the
Speaker 3: pieces Marvin seen in the past, this one doesn't look
Speaker 3: like a typical property square on the board game. There's
Speaker 3: just text here revealing that the bearer has won twenty
Speaker 3: five thousand dollars. About a month ago, Jerry mentioned to
Speaker 3: Marvin that he might be able to get his hands
Speaker 3: on this exact game piece. Everyone knows that Jerry works
Speaker 3: for the company that manages the monopoly game for McDonald's,
Speaker 3: but it still didn't seem possible that he'd just be
Speaker 3: able to produce a winning ticket whenever he wanted. Now
Speaker 3: he's essentially handed as stepbrother a check for twenty five
Speaker 3: grand Marvin should send the game piece in, he says.
Speaker 3: Then they can split the winnings fifty to fifty. Marvin blinks,
Speaker 3: inspecting the small token in his hand, while Jerry explains
Speaker 3: exactly what he has to do to claim the prize.
Speaker 3: Jerry is very proud of himself for pulling this off,
Speaker 3: and if it works out, he sure he'll be able
Speaker 3: to do it again. Exactly how Jerry manages to get
Speaker 3: his hands on the first few winning game pieces isn't clear,
Speaker 3: but it's possible that the instant win prizes below a
Speaker 3: certain dollar amount aren't guarded quite as fiercely as the
Speaker 3: major ones. However, it happens Jerry successfully hands off a
Speaker 3: winning piece to his stepbrother in nineteen eighty nine, and
Speaker 3: Marvin claims the twenty five grand without a hitch. Jerry
Speaker 3: probably chose Marvin as his test case, not because they're
Speaker 3: especially close, but because they don't share a surname. That
Speaker 3: means Marvin wouldn't set off any alarm bells when he
Speaker 3: claimed the money.
Speaker 1: But Jerry knows he needs to be more careful the
Speaker 1: next time he pulls this time.
Speaker 3: The last thing he wants is a trail of friends
Speaker 3: and relatives who won a bunch of money from McDonald's.
Speaker 3: Now the monopoly campaign's been around for a few years
Speaker 3: at this point, and it's so popular that anyone who
Speaker 3: knows Jerry knows that he's in charge of the prizes.
Speaker 3: It's like he's their man on the inside. For the
Speaker 3: people bold enough to ask him for a favor. His
Speaker 3: local butcher in Atlanta is one of the first to
Speaker 3: come to Jerry and make the request. He wants to
Speaker 3: win a prize, but Jerry's not sure that's a good idea.
Speaker 3: It'd be too easy to make the connection between the
Speaker 3: two of them, he says, But the butcher isn't phased.
Speaker 3: They'll find a distant relative to claim the prize. After
Speaker 3: thinking it over for a few days, Jerry decides, yeah,
Speaker 3: that's a good plan. Of course, he's not just gonna
Speaker 3: give the winning piece away with Marvin. He asks for
Speaker 3: a fifty percent cut of the money, but he's willing
Speaker 3: to take less this time, so he sells the ten
Speaker 3: thousand dollars instant winner to his butcher for two thousand
Speaker 3: dollars cash. Easy money, but I mean it can't last. Eventually,
Speaker 3: the fervor around the monopoly game gets so big that
Speaker 3: McDonald's decides it's time to change up its procedures. Instead
Speaker 3: of individual game pieces that get handed to customers with
Speaker 3: their purchase, the tokens are pealed off a secure role
Speaker 3: behind I'm the counter. So for the next couple of years,
Speaker 3: Jerry is cut out of the chain of distribution and
Speaker 3: his little side hustle is put on hold. But it's
Speaker 3: only temporary. It's nineteen ninety five and Jerry Jacobson's fifty two.
Speaker 3: Just before nine am, he pulls into his parking spot
Speaker 3: at Simon Marketing and heads inside.
Speaker 1: It's one of the days he needs to use his cane.
Speaker 3: Since his Gillan vret diagnoses fifteen years ago, the cane
Speaker 3: is something he has to rely on from time to
Speaker 3: time now. He makes his way through the building and
Speaker 3: up to his office. That's when he sees it. A
Speaker 3: box on his desk. It's smaller than a shoe box
Speaker 3: and has stickers marking at Urgent and Fragile. Curious, he
Speaker 3: sits down and grabs a pair of scissors to cut
Speaker 3: through the tape. Inside is just one thing, but it's
Speaker 3: worth millions. It's a thick roll of holographic stickers, the
Speaker 3: kind Simon Marketing and Dittler Brothers used to transport the
Speaker 3: McDonald's Monopoly game pieces.
Speaker 1: Recently, the campaign has evolved.
Speaker 3: Now the tokens are stuck directly onto product packaging like
Speaker 3: cups and fry boxes, so Jerry's once again responsible for
Speaker 3: bringing the winning pieces around the country where they're applied
Speaker 3: at random during the production process. Just to be clear,
Speaker 3: these stickers absolutely should not be on Jerry's desk. They
Speaker 3: should have been delivered to someone else at the company,
Speaker 3: because giving him access to a huge supply of these
Speaker 3: stickers is removing a key obstacle to getting his hands
Speaker 3: on the big ticket prizes. Jerry recognizes that right away,
Speaker 3: and his brain kicks into high gear. It's time to
Speaker 3: restart a scheme, and this time he's gonna take it
Speaker 3: up a notch. By the time the stickers are mistakenly
Speaker 3: delivered to Jerry Jacobson's desk, he's become disillusioned with the
Speaker 3: job to think made him special. It's nothing his company's done,
Speaker 3: it's their client McDonald's. Later, Jerry will tell the story
Speaker 3: like this. He's in the room when the computer program
Speaker 3: is randomizing where winning game pieces will be sent to.
Speaker 3: That's standard, but that day the system designates a factory
Speaker 3: in Canada as the lucky destination before anyone could start
Speaker 3: the process to bring the pieces up north. Though McDonald's
Speaker 3: executives order Jerry to run the program again. They don't
Speaker 3: want any of the big winners going to Canada ever. Again,
Speaker 3: this is Jerry's version of events, and there's no public
Speaker 3: evidence backing up his story, but he'll later point to
Speaker 3: this moment as his reason for doing what he does next,
Speaker 3: because after he gets his hands on those stickers, Jerry
Speaker 3: uses them to steal the highest value game pieces, and
Speaker 3: how he does it is laughably simple. Remember that the
Speaker 3: envelopes containing the winners are locked in a briefcase. Jerry
Speaker 3: puts the code in for one lock, and the independent
Speaker 3: auditor chooses the other code. They're each supposed to look
Speaker 3: away while the other sets their code, but Jerry just
Speaker 3: makes a show of looking away. He quickly peeks while
Speaker 3: the auditor spins the dials. Now he's got both codes
Speaker 3: to open a briefcase. Still, once the envelope is inside
Speaker 3: the case, it's handcuffed to Jerry's wrist and the two
Speaker 3: of them go straight to the airport. The auditors by
Speaker 3: his side the entire time. That's her job to keep
Speaker 3: him honest, but Jerry finds an easy workaround. Once they
Speaker 3: get off the plane at their destination, he says he's
Speaker 3: got to use the bathroom. Then he just walks into
Speaker 3: the men's room alone while the auditor waits patiently outside.
Speaker 3: Jerry locks himself in a stall, opens the briefcase and
Speaker 3: removes the envelope. He peels the sticker up, tips the
Speaker 3: couple dozen pieces into his pocket, and replaces them with
Speaker 3: a bunch of worthless pieces he swiped from the factory.
Speaker 3: Then he reseals the envelope with a brand newsticker, locks
Speaker 3: it inside the briefcase again, and heads back to meet.
Speaker 1: The auditor so they can carry on with their task.
Speaker 3: No one ever notices what he's doing, so Jerry easily
Speaker 3: starts making off with every high value ticket.
Speaker 1: He can get his hands on. The only problem now
Speaker 1: is what to do with them.
Speaker 3: Obviously, he can't claim them for himself, but he's got
Speaker 3: to be careful about who he gives them to.
Speaker 1: He can't have anyone ratting him out.
Speaker 3: After the successful test case with his stepbrother Marvin, Jerry
Speaker 3: figures that he's someone he can trust, but Marvin's not interested.
Speaker 1: He owns a successful business and he doesn't need the money.
Speaker 3: So when Jerry starts giving him more winning game pieces,
Speaker 3: Marvin tells his stepbrother that he doesn't want them. Helly
Speaker 3: even drops a couple into Salvation Army donation tens and
Speaker 3: one night, when and Jerry hands him the big one,
Speaker 3: I mean the big one, a million dollar instant win piece,
Speaker 3: Marvin knows exactly what to do to get the message
Speaker 3: through to his brother. Right in front of Jerry. Marvin
Speaker 3: walks over to a toilet, opens the lid, and drops
Speaker 3: the piece in, then blush. The two of them literally
Speaker 3: watch a million dollars go down the drain. Then Marvin
Speaker 3: turns to Jerry and tells him to cut it out.
Speaker 3: He's gotten away with it for now, but it's gonna
Speaker 3: blow up in his face sooner or later. Jerry sighs
Speaker 3: and tells Marvin he's right. He'll stop stealing pieces. It's
Speaker 3: not worth the risk. Marvin goes home that night, thinking
Speaker 3: he's turned his brother around. But here's the deal, Jerry
Speaker 3: Jacobson is a liar. He's not going to stop. In fact,
Speaker 3: he's just getting started from airship. This is episode one
Speaker 3: in our series on the Great McDonald's Monopoly heist. On
Speaker 3: the next episode, Jerry starts finding allies to help him
Speaker 3: recruit winners for his scheme, but with every person who
Speaker 3: gets roped in, the risk of getting caught goes way up.
Speaker 3: We use many different sources while preparing this episode. A
Speaker 3: few we can recommend to the Daily Beast article howen
Speaker 3: ex cop Rick McDonald's Monopoly game and Stole Millions by
Speaker 3: Jeff mash, the HBO documentary series mcmillions, and the book
Speaker 3: of the same name by James Lee Hernandez and Brian Lazarde.
Speaker 3: This episode may contain reenactments or dramatized details, and while
Speaker 3: in some cases we can't know exactly what happened, all
Speaker 3: our dramatizations are based on historical research. American Criminal is
Speaker 3: a co production of Airship and Evergreen Podcasts. It's hosted, edited,
Speaker 3: and produced by me Jeremy Schwartz. Audio editing and sound
Speaker 3: designed by Sean ruhl Hoffman. Music by throm This episode
Speaker 3: is written and researched by Joel Callen, Managing producer Emily Burt.
Speaker 3: Executive producers are Joel Callen, William Simpson, and Lindsay Graham.
Speaker 2: If you want to know how Jerry's story ends. You
Speaker 2: can find the rest of the great McDonald's monopoly heist,
Speaker 2: and many more true stories of crime and punishment over
Speaker 2: on American Criminal wherever you get your podcasts.