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Showing posts with the label #McDonalds

Review: HBO’s ‘McMillions’ Reminds Us That Every Era Has Its Scam

#McDonalds #McMillions #Documentary #HBO A six-part documentary tells the story of the great 20th-century McDonald’s Monopoly fraud case with quirky characters and lackluster visuals. Oftentimes when listening to one of the dozens of excellent investigative podcasts I struggle to commit to, I’ll think, “this would make a great TV show.” When watching “ McMillions ,” a documentary series premiering on HBO Monday night, mostly I thought, “this would make a great podcast.” The story is wild: The McDonald’s Monopoly game, for some reason beloved in the 1980s and ’90s, was rigged. Players were supposed to collect peel-off tickets and either amass properties à la the board game or find instant winners, but a sprawling F.B.I. investigation uncovered the ludicrous scam in which a security officer for the marketing company that oversaw the production of the game pieces secretly snatched the winning pieces and distributed them — for a fee — to friends, family and eventually