McMillions: When America’s Biggest Game Stopped Being a Game

[00:00:01] Kyle Risi: fBI, special agent Doug Matthews

[00:00:04] gets an anonymous tip claiming that the McDonald's Monopoly game that had been running since 1987,

[00:00:11] was rigged.

[00:00:13] Basically, every time you buy something from McDonald's, you will reveal a game piece.

[00:00:17] The ultimate is of course, $1 million instant win prize.

[00:00:22] doug tracks down three of the names mentioned by the anonymous caller, and he realizes that all three of the winners were all [00:00:30] blood related.

[00:00:31] Adam Cox: What are the chances?

[00:00:32] Kyle Risi: Turns out Adam one in 216 septillion.

[00:00:36] Adam Cox: That's math I can't even do,

[00:00:37] Kyle Risi: it's math. We can't even do,

[00:00:40] it's very clear the scam had to be an inside job

[00:00:44] so let me introduce you to Jerry.

[00:00:46] Jerry Oversee's the printing of all the instant win game pieces. So After a couple of years he has the thought why send the instant winners out to be randomly found by some chump when I can pick the winner myself and take a [00:01:00] nice big fat kickback in the process.

[00:01:03] The FBI, were going to have to be strategic and covert in tracking this guy down. They now realize a massive chunk of all these lucky winners have all been felons.

[00:01:13] Adam Cox: So how much has McDonald's given away to these dodgy people?

[00:01:17] Kyle Risi: So much money.

[00:01:44] Welcome to the Compendium, an Assembly of fascinating things, a weekly variety podcast that gives you just enough information to stand your ground at any social gathering.

[00:01:53] Adam Cox: We explore stories from the darker corners of true crime, the hidden gems of history, and the jaw-dropping deeds of [00:02:00] extraordinary people.

[00:02:00] Kyle Risi: I am, of course, Kyle Reese, your ringmaster for this week's episode.

[00:02:04] Adam Cox: And I'm Adam Cox, the PA to the Animals of the Circus.

[00:02:10] Well, it's been a tough week. I've only just started and um,

[00:02:14] Kyle Risi: but you're the pa to all of the animals.

[00:02:15] Adam Cox: All of the animals.

[00:02:16] Kyle Risi: The lions, the bears.

[00:02:18] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:02:19] Kyle Risi: The Meir Cats. Your mom.

[00:02:21] Adam Cox: Uh, hang on.

[00:02:22] Kyle Risi: Uh,

[00:02:23] Adam Cox: no, but the animals, yes. Um, so just a couple of quick updates whilst I've got you.

[00:02:28] Kyle Risi: Okay.

[00:02:29] Adam Cox: [00:02:30] Daphne, the Dolphin. Okay. Can, cannot make the board meeting tomorrow.

[00:02:33] Kyle Risi: No. Why? Why is that?

[00:02:34] Adam Cox: She says she has better things to do.

[00:02:36] Kyle Risi: Okay. Well, we'll have to circle back on this

[00:02:38] Adam Cox: Uhhuh,

[00:02:38] Kyle Risi: but opinion that,

[00:02:39] Adam Cox: yeah. And then, Zoe the Zebra

[00:02:42] Kyle Risi: mm-hmm.

[00:02:42] Adam Cox: Cannot be in the same room with Larry the Lion anymore. Ooh. After he tried to take a chunk of her rear.

[00:02:48] Kyle Risi: Of her rear.

[00:02:49] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:02:50] Kyle Risi: Okay.

[00:02:50] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm. There's a lot of, uh, a lot of firefighting.

[00:02:53] Kyle Risi: Okay. Well I would appreciate if we could get HR onto this 'cause this is not acceptable, Adam.

[00:02:59] Adam Cox: Well, Sue's on [00:03:00] holiday.

[00:03:00] Kyle Risi: What does this DeVol into guys? If you are new to the show and you want to support us in the absolute best way to support the show and.

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[00:03:21] Adam Cox: And for as little as $5 a month,

[00:03:23] Kyle Risi: just $5,

[00:03:24] Adam Cox: you can become a fellow freak of the show, which will unlock our entire back catalog, including [00:03:30] classic episodes about the history of the NHS.

[00:03:33] Mm-hmm. And then the Roswell Instant. That was pretty interesting.

[00:03:36] Kyle Risi: That was a good one.

[00:03:37] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:03:37] Kyle Risi: Yeah. A whole lot of boo hockey, as I might say.

[00:03:39] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:03:40] Kyle Risi: But let's be honest, Adam, because the real reason to sign up as a certified freak and a big top tier member is because you get exclusive access. May I add to our compendium key chain? As we always say, tacky. Well, I say tasteful.

[00:03:56] Adam Cox: I'd say it's

[00:03:57] Kyle Risi: it's side boob tasteful.

[00:03:58] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:03:59] Kyle Risi: It's [00:04:00] it's bold. It is beautiful. And is the single best way for us to always ensure we're there dangling near your crotch.

[00:04:08] Adam Cox: If anything, you can almost use it as a cod piece

[00:04:10] Kyle Risi: or like Henry vii.

[00:04:12] Adam Cox: Yeah,

[00:04:13] Kyle Risi: I explain

[00:04:14] Adam Cox: it's almost big enough for a cod piece, I

[00:04:15] Kyle Risi: feel. Yeah, but you can't get into the key chain and wear it like a cod piece, like Henry vii.

[00:04:20] Adam Cox: No. I mean you could, I dunno, re-engineer it.

[00:04:23] Kyle Risi: I

[00:04:23] Adam Cox: do what you want with it.

[00:04:24] Kyle Risi: Or just like a big belt buckle.

[00:04:26] Adam Cox: Yeah, sure. Or a co piece.

[00:04:28] Kyle Risi: That's not a thing.

[00:04:29] Adam Cox: [00:04:30] And lastly, guys, please follow us on your favorite podcast app and leave us a review. Your support helps others find us and keeps these amazing stories coming.

[00:04:38] Kyle Risi: Actually, the reviews have been quite slow recently. We've had a few really nice ones, but for some reason they've slowed down and I dunno, maybe we need to change this little bit up so you guys can understand that. We don't ever want you to stop sending reviews.

[00:04:51] Adam Cox: Yeah, we're desperate.

[00:04:51] Kyle Risi: It's one of the best things about waking up in the morning. Cause normally the Americans leave the reviews while we're asleep.

[00:04:56] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:04:57] Kyle Risi: So we get to wake up and they're like, oh yeah, there's some nice reviews from the [00:05:00] Americans.

[00:05:00] Adam Cox: Yeah. I've had to start leaving fake reviews just so you don't, you know, get too sad.

[00:05:04] Kyle Risi: I it guys, that's enough of the housekeeping because Adam, today on the compendium, we are diving into an assembly of passing, go collecting the money and discovering that the game pieces were stolen long before the first roll was ever rolled.

[00:05:20] Adam Cox: for starters. Mm-hmm. This has gotta be about monopoly. Because of pass and go.

[00:05:24] So is it the history of Monopoly? Was I looking at that?

[00:05:28] Kyle Risi: Possibly the history of Monopoly? Yeah. 'cause it [00:05:30] was invented by a woman, right? That's right. And I thinks it's definitely been on our radar. It's been suggested a few times on by the Patreons.

[00:05:34] Adam Cox: Yes. I think I researched it, but then yeah, we didn't come back to it.

[00:05:37] Kyle Risi: It's 'cause she was a woman.

[00:05:38] Adam Cox: That's not the reason

[00:05:40] Kyle Risi: We're not giving more our time.

[00:05:41] Adam Cox: No one's gonna be interested in that. No. So I don't, unless it is the history.

[00:05:46] Kyle Risi: Adam. Today I'm taking us back to the early two thousands, uhhuh specifically to a little FBI office in Jacksonville, Florida.

[00:05:54] This is where we meet fBI, special agent Doug Matthews. [00:06:00] Now Doug is younger than the other agents at this office, and it's because this FBI office was the kind of place where aged out agents who had already lived through their glory days, typically came to unwind before their retirements,

[00:06:13] Adam Cox: mm-hmm.

[00:06:14] Kyle Risi: It's where they comes to die.

[00:06:15] Adam Cox: Okay?

[00:06:16] Kyle Risi: So it's fair to say when it comes to enthusiasm for FBI work, it was pretty much Doug alone who had most of it but there wasn't really much going on that really excited Doug. Most of the cases that he was assigned were kinda white collar crime, a [00:06:30] bit of bank fraud, a bit of healthcare fraud.

[00:06:32] If he was lucky, they might land the odd corruption case. So it is fair to say that this isn't what Doug had envisioned for his career. Do you know what I mean? Mm-hmm. It's like you, like you, you like dream of a, you dream of a job in marketing and you think, oh, I've got big hopes. I'm gonna come up with the next Coca-Cola ad that's just gonna like blow everyone away. I'm gonna be the next Don Draper, and then you end up selling raffle tickets.

[00:06:58] Adam Cox: Hey,

[00:06:59] Kyle Risi: for sports [00:07:00] car.

[00:07:00] Adam Cox: I do more than that,

[00:07:01] Kyle Risi: Doug is in the same position as you are?

[00:07:03] Adam Cox: I don't know if he is.

[00:07:04] Kyle Risi: He is. He wanted to un foil the next Enron, but yet he's dealing with a bit of healthcare fraud

[00:07:10] Adam Cox: as much as I wanna make this about me.

[00:07:12] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm.

[00:07:12] Adam Cox: What is it about this guy? Come on then.

[00:07:15] Kyle Risi: Okay. So basically Doug wants excitement, right? He does consider relocating a couple times, but family commitments and responsibilities meant that he was stuck in Jacksonville. For now.

[00:07:23] However, Doug does make the best of his situation because he was lucky enough to be partnered with a [00:07:30] legendary agent, Rick Dent, which meant that he learned a lot. But at the same time, Doug describes Rick as having as much personality as this table.

[00:07:40] Adam Cox: I mean, it's white.

[00:07:40] Kyle Risi: Did he say it's white? Yeah. You have the personality of a white man. Basically he's saying they're like, Rick is really ready for his retirement.

[00:07:52] Adam Cox: I see.

[00:07:52] Kyle Risi: One day Doug notices a note on Rick's desk that reads McDonald's monopoly fraud.

[00:07:59] Adam Cox: [00:08:00] Okay.

[00:08:00] Kyle Risi: And he asked Rick about it. And he sort of rolls his eyes. This is Rick and he's like, it was an anonymous tip claiming that the McDonald's Monopoly game that had been running twice a year every year since 1987, this is 2001

[00:08:14] Adam Cox: that long

[00:08:15] Kyle Risi: mm-hmm.

[00:08:15] Was rigged. That the caller thought that this might be something that they ought to look into.

[00:08:21] Now, to Rick, this sounded like it was a jaded customer who despite trying to play the game every year, never won anything. And so thought like the FBI need to hear [00:08:30] about this. Mm-hmm. So he is like, it's a jaded customer.

[00:08:31] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:08:32] Kyle Risi: So desperate to work on anything other than healthcare fraud. Doug asks if he can look into it to see if there's any substance to this .

[00:08:38] Rick is basically like whatever, as long as it means I don't have to do it. 'cause like I said, I'm ready to die. So Doug makes a few calls. He tracks down three of the names mentioned by the anonymous caller, and he realizes that all three of the winners were all blood related.

[00:08:54] Adam Cox: Okay. That sounds a bit suspicious.

[00:08:57] Mm-hmm. What are the chances? A whole family member, like a group [00:09:00] of family members. One,

[00:09:00] Kyle Risi: three people. Yeah.

[00:09:01] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:09:01] Kyle Risi: it turns out Adam incredibly slim. So for a bit of context, the odds are winning the Powerball in America, today is one in 292 million.

[00:09:10] Adam Cox: That sounds pretty slim.

[00:09:11] Kyle Risi: Playing the McDonald's Monopoly game, the chances of finding one of the ultra rare pieces, the top tier pieces like Boardwalk, is one in 600 million.

[00:09:20] Adam Cox: That's more,

[00:09:21] Kyle Risi: it's huge. Like it's, twice as hard to win the McDonald's top tier prize than it is to win the Powerball. You've got better odds playing the Powerball than you do [00:09:30] playing McDonald's.

[00:09:30] Adam Cox: Okay,

[00:09:31] Kyle Risi: monopoly.

[00:09:31] Adam Cox: I see. I get it.

[00:09:32] Kyle Risi: So it's not impossible, but the odds are incredibly small.

[00:09:36] But remember Adam, what Doug is looking at is three huge winners all from the same family. So the chances of that happening are even greater and it sets it at one in 216 septillion.

[00:09:47] Adam Cox: That's math I can't even do,

[00:09:48] Kyle Risi: it's math. We can't even do, that's literally what I wrote down. How amazing you said that.

[00:09:52] Adam Cox: I mean, you bring up friends reference all the time.

[00:09:54] Kyle Risi: So for Doug, this is like worth looking into a little bit more. He pulls the list of all the big winners spanning back to [00:10:00] 1987, so 13 years at this point. And he realizes it wasn't just these three winners that were linked, it was just about all of them.

[00:10:06] Adam Cox: Ah.

[00:10:07] Kyle Risi: And so today, Adam, I'm gonna tell you about the great McDonald's monopoly heist.

[00:10:13] Adam Cox: I do, you know what, this is jogging something in the archives. Like I've never of your

[00:10:17] Kyle Risi: mind.

[00:10:18] Adam Cox: Yeah. There's I'm sure there's a documentary that I watched about this,

[00:10:22] Kyle Risi: were you planning on doing this episode for me at any point?

[00:10:24] Adam Cox: No.

[00:10:25] Kyle Risi: Okay, good.

[00:10:25] Adam Cox: So yeah, I'm trying to remember this now, but yeah, I can't remember. 'cause I know there's the [00:10:30] whole, not quite the same thing, the whole thing with Pepsi and the guy that wanted a helicopter. Like if he collected enough tokens or something like that, he could basically

[00:10:37] Kyle Risi: get a, like a Marsh Harrier kind of plane fight. I think that, yeah, that's

[00:10:41] Adam Cox: remember because how it was advertised on TV when it was actually a joke, but he managed to pull it off.

[00:10:45] Kyle Risi: Yes.

[00:10:45] Adam Cox: So then he took them to court, whatever, because

[00:10:47] Kyle Risi: they were like, but no reasonable person would've expected that to actually be a prize. Yeah. Because I I don't think so. And then, yeah,

[00:10:52] but he won, but they didn't actually have a a Harrier fighter jet to give him. And he was like, no, I want, I want one. You have to source one.

[00:10:58] Adam Cox: Yeah. So it's not that. So [00:11:00] I have no idea. Tell me more about this case, this fraud.

[00:11:02] Kyle Risi: Okay. So my first question for you then Adam, is what do you know about the McDonald's Monopoly game? Have you ever played?

[00:11:08] Adam Cox: Yeah. I'm not a big McDonald's fan, but I know when you buy a McDonald's, you rip off a piece of card on your coffee cup or whatever, and it's like a piece from Monopoly and you collect so many and you get raws, like, free McFlurry. Maybe some money. Yeah, maybe a games console. Pretty small prices.

[00:11:23] Kyle Risi: Yes. And as you said, we personally, I haven't really played it, but we are very much aware of it. I wouldn't exactly go outta my way to [00:11:30] buy McDonald's just to see if I've won a price, but the concept of playing is fairly straightforward, especially if you're familiar with the actual game of Monopoly.

[00:11:37] Basically, every time you buy something from McDonald's, like a Big Mac or fries, the container will always have this peel off sticker, which upon peeling it back, you will reveal a game piece. Which is typically one of the properties that you find in Monopoly. Mm-hmm. Or one of the utilities.

[00:11:53] The aim obviously, is to collect a set which will then in turn unlock some prizes. The higher the property value for the set, the bigger the prize you [00:12:00] win basically.

[00:12:00] So for example, if you collect both Park Lane and Mayfair, which is actually Park Place and Boardwalk in the USA, then the big prize will be the $1 million prize.

[00:12:11] Adam Cox: Right? Okay.

[00:12:11] Kyle Risi: But you can also win through the instant win pieces. These are sort of standalone pieces which you peel back and we'll say something like, congratulations Adam, you have won a $500,000.

[00:12:21] But the ultimate instant win prize is of course, Adam, the $1 million instant win prize. And of course, throughout most of our lives, [00:12:30] this game has just been a given. Right. McDonald's been running this since 1987, so that's huge. That's the year you were born. Mm-hmm. It has proved so successful that it is now a biannual thing. So they run it twice a year, and over the years McDonald's has given away over a billion dollars in prizes.

[00:12:46] That is just in the US alone, which is huge.

[00:12:49] The last game, however, in the USA was in 2014, which they say was retired due to the lingering hangover of this particular scam that we are gonna [00:13:00] talk about today. But the USA's appetite seems to have returned out and because the game's returned in October, 2025 after a decade long hiatus.

[00:13:10] But of course it's all obviously app based. You can still obviously get all the game pieces, except when you peel back the ticket, you've gotta scan a QR code and that then reveals a win, which means that you've gotta go through the app, then they've got all your information. It's just, it's a massive data gathering scam.

[00:13:25] Adam Cox: And an easier way to fudge. The winnings because they can control what gets [00:13:30] won better.

[00:13:30] Kyle Risi: Exactly. But they can also make sure that there's no frauds going on. Right. Because true in a database somewhere.

[00:13:35] But as far as marketing campaigns go, the McDonald's Monopoly game is up there as one of the most successful fast food promotion campaigns in history.

[00:13:43] Like whoever was running the McDonald's marketing, they are in like the big league. So this company called Simon Marketing is the one who kind of like takes care of us for McDonald's. Mm-hmm. They are huge.

[00:13:54] In fact, the same marketing company, Simon Marketing, is also responsible [00:14:00] for the second most successful marketing campaign for a fast food company in history. And again, it was also for McDonald's. Can you guess what that was?

[00:14:08] Adam Cox: Is it the, I'm loving it. Sort of song with Justin tim Blake. Um, Happy Meal.

[00:14:14] Kyle Risi: They came up with a Happy Meal, which I think is incredible. Like it's, ever since I have known McDonald's, the Happy Meal's been like a staple, right?

[00:14:21] Adam Cox: You'd want the Happy Meal, you'd wanna collect all the pieces. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

[00:14:25] Kyle Risi: It's a good manipulation tactic for kids, right?

[00:14:27] Adam Cox: Absolutely.

[00:14:27] Kyle Risi: So special agent Doug [00:14:30] Matthews back in Jacksonville, he continues digging. He keeps hearing the same name of the supposed Mastermind behind this entire scheme coming up. It's not much to go on because the name is pretty vague, but it's still distinctive nonetheless. And it's just two words,

[00:14:44] Adam Cox: right?

[00:14:45] Kyle Risi: Uncle Jerry.

[00:14:46] Adam Cox: Okay.

[00:14:47] Kyle Risi: It's very clear the scam had to be an inside job, but pinpointing who this Uncle Jerry was, this character was going to be hard because a scam, as big as this likely meant that Uncle Jerry was [00:15:00] likely just a pseudonym, used by someone. Very smart, operating in the shadow somewhere,

[00:15:04] you've gotta remember the pool of people that they would need to sift through to try and find who this Uncle Jerry might be is just huge. First of all, the game pieces for the McDonald's Monopoly game, they're all printed in factories with hundreds of members of staff.

[00:15:18] They are then disputed to dozens of factories that make all the packaging right? each of those each have hundreds, if not thousands of employees as well. Mm-hmm. So it could be any one of them.

[00:15:27] And from there, the packaging is then shipped [00:15:30] across the USA by hundreds of different, truck drivers delivered to some 14,000 stores who collectively employ more than 800,000 people. In the US alone.

[00:15:44] Adam Cox: So you've got a lot of staff that are directly employed by McDonald's. Mm-hmm. And then you've got everyone else that's kind of

[00:15:49] Kyle Risi: making this happen.

[00:15:50] Adam Cox: Yeah. So it absolutely has to be an inside job, right? If someone's getting these specific tokens and then handing them out to certain people

[00:15:58] Kyle Risi: mm-hmm.

[00:15:58] Adam Cox: Then they've gotta have [00:16:00] access to the plant, which is printing these, right?

[00:16:02] Kyle Risi: Sure. Yeah. They're also quite centralized to a typical area, so it could be someone at the branch level stealing them because they also get given a bunch of tokens as well to hand out.

[00:16:11] The reason for that is because without that, it's a form of gambling, so they call it a sweepstake . You can, if you want to simply go into the store and just say, I'd like some game pieces, and they'll hand you some across. Otherwise it's considered gambling.

[00:16:25] Adam Cox: Yes, I know all about that.

[00:16:27] Kyle Risi: You do. 'cause you're, you're a marketer. Yes. So you know this. [00:16:30] So it could be even be someone at the store who's stolen a batch and is handing them out, right? Mm-hmm. But at the same time, it might also not be them because they're managing to get some of these big prizes.

[00:16:38] And they're, as we know, extremely rare to get even just one, let alone a bunch of them across 14 years.

[00:16:45] Adam Cox: Yeah. I imagine it's really rare just to have a town have lots of the same big prizes. Right?

[00:16:50] Kyle Risi: So basically the list of potential suspects in this is just endless. So finding this Uncle Jerry seems like it was going to be impossible.

[00:16:57] The FBI, were going to have [00:17:00] to both be strategic and covert in tracking this guy down. So let me introduce you to Jerry.

[00:17:06] Adam Cox: Okay.

[00:17:06] Kyle Risi: His name. It's Jerry.

[00:17:08] Adam Cox: Oh, and is he an uncle?

[00:17:12] Kyle Risi: I assume he is a uncle. Yeah, so his name's Jerry Jacobson. He was born in 1943 in Ohio. When he's a teenager, his family moved to Miami, Florida and soon after he comes of age, Jerry decides that he wants to make it as a US Marine.

[00:17:27] You know, jumping, skipping. I [00:17:30] more jumping.

[00:17:30] Adam Cox: He, I don't know if that's what they do

[00:17:32] Kyle Risi: shooting pew.

[00:17:33] Adam Cox: They, they're skipping on a boat.

[00:17:34] Kyle Risi: I dunno. What Marines, US Marines do is Marine. marine isn't like the Navy. Right. That's different in America.

[00:17:40] Adam Cox: The Marines is a lot more like hardcore exercise.

[00:17:43] Kyle Risi: Like special ops. Yeah. Like go and get like Obama some blood and

[00:17:47] obama. Some

[00:17:49] Adam Cox: Bin

[00:17:49] Kyle Risi: Laden and Bin Laden

[00:17:51] Adam Cox: they're like Navy Seals, so it's a bit different. I don't know actually.

[00:17:54] Kyle Risi: Yeah, he's wants to be in a Marine and for some reason I, I dunno what that is.

[00:17:57] Adam Cox: I feel like I should have Googled that,

[00:17:58] Kyle Risi: But on account of [00:18:00] having high arches, apparently he fails the marine kind of fitness test and so he's rejected. Mm-hmm. Do you know how high arches are?

[00:18:07] Adam Cox: No.

[00:18:07] Kyle Risi: High arches means that the arch of your foot is just too high. So means that It can really impair your ability to jump and march, which is why I said skipping.

[00:18:15] Adam Cox: Oh, so, so you can't have high arches in order to be in the Marines?

[00:18:18] Kyle Risi: I think so,

[00:18:19] Adam Cox: You're looking for someone with flat feet?

[00:18:21] Kyle Risi: No high arches. He's got high arches. That's why he was rejected.

[00:18:24] Adam Cox: Yeah. So therefore marines are looking for flat feet

[00:18:27] Kyle Risi: people.

[00:18:27] Oh, I thought you meant the FBI.

[00:18:28] Adam Cox: Oh,

[00:18:29] Kyle Risi: why did [00:18:30] Jerry that he'd to find someone with high arches.

[00:18:32] Adam Cox: Take off your shoes.

[00:18:35] Kyle Risi: The point is Jerry is Devo, so he does the next best thing and he joins the Hollywood, Florida Police Department.

[00:18:40] Adam Cox: Is that the next best thing?

[00:18:42] Kyle Risi: Well, he's gonna be a police officer, so I guess so. I guess it is. What is the next best thing?

[00:18:45] Adam Cox: Well, after a marine, I wouldn't say, oh, and just go do that in Florida.

[00:18:48] Kyle Risi: Go join the Navy,

[00:18:49] Adam Cox: go join the pantomime.

[00:18:51] Kyle Risi: That's not the next best thing,

[00:18:52] Adam Cox: isn't it?

[00:18:53] Kyle Risi: No, it's really not. This is going off topic anyway. Everything's going great for the first couple years until he ends up injuring his [00:19:00] wrist trying to tackle a perp. And as a result he ends up going on medical leave.

[00:19:04] Sadly, things do not get better for him 'cause after a few years he ends up just collapsing. One day in like paralysis, he loses like feeling in his arms and his legs. He even loses feeling in his fucking lungs at him.

[00:19:16] Adam Cox: Can you feel your

[00:19:17] Kyle Risi: lungs? Uh, no. Maybe his diaphragm.

[00:19:19] Adam Cox: Okay.

[00:19:19] Kyle Risi: Yeah. 'cause you can't feel your lungs, can you? No. No. So. They do a bunch of tests on him, and it turns out that he has this really super rare neurological disorder, and so all of his hopes of returning back to the police force are [00:19:30] just dashed overnight.

[00:19:31] Jerry's wife, Marsha, who is also a cop, she is forced to resign so that she can take care of him full-time. Now, his medical leave eventually expires, and so the police are forced to let him go, and so Jerry falls into this massive depression.

[00:19:46] He starts gambling, which really fucks both him and Marsha Rover. He promises to quit and get back on the straight and narrow, but it means, as well as Marsha caring for him physically, she now has to go off and find a job to support them both, which is is tough, [00:20:00] right?

[00:20:00] I am a traditional man, and it means if you have to work twice as hard to support us, goddammit.

[00:20:05] So in 1981, they both decided to relocate to Atlanta, Georgia to start over. Jerry recovers just enough to get work as a mechanic in some garage. And Marsha picks up work as an accounting security auditor for a firm called the Dittler Brothers.

[00:20:20] So they're basically people that specialize in high security printing, things like lottery tickets and postage stamps and things like that. They also kind of print sweep state competition [00:20:30] materials for companies like McDonald's.

[00:20:31] Adam Cox: Got you.

[00:20:32] Kyle Risi: The thing though is that they're very good at printing tamper proof technology, like scratch offs and stickers that kind of break apart when you peel them back. Mm-hmm. So they know that you've kind of like opened the envelope or whatever.

[00:20:42] Marsha, in this job, she ends up climbing the ranks pretty quickly and eventually she manages to get Jerry a job working as a security specialist, managing the production of the printing of these pieces.

[00:20:53] Adam Cox: So yeah, make sure they're not going

[00:20:55] Kyle Risi: out being stolen basically.

[00:20:56] Adam Cox: Okay, fine. '

[00:20:57] Kyle Risi: cause he's really militant about this, right? Remember he's an ex-cop, so he's [00:21:00] perfect for the job. He's also very suspicious of anyone who comes close to the printing production line. He will routinely check worker shoes to see if they've got anything hidden inside

[00:21:10] Adam Cox: really that like almost like when they search a prison for any contraband or something like that.

[00:21:15] Kyle Risi: Lift the balls.

[00:21:16] Adam Cox: Yeah. Like the cleaner like, why, why? What do you got in your bag there? Mm-hmm. Well, some cleaning products. Let

[00:21:21] Kyle Risi: see, it's, it's exactly that.

[00:21:22] And this is just a little printing place. Right. But the stakes are high because the things that the printing aren't lottery tickets. They are scratch offs and they are [00:21:30] big prices for places like McDonald's. Mm-hmm. Which they haven't started the monopoly bit just yet, but they will be.

[00:21:35] But by 1983, Marsha discovers a bunch of new gambling debts that Jerry has been racking up after he promised, of course, that he would stop. Things end up getting really ugly and in the end, Marsha has had enough and she just falls for divorce.

[00:21:48] Jerry, however. He stays at the firm and so does Marshall, which must be awkward. But watching from the sidelines is one of Dittler brothers key clients, a company called Simon Marketing.

[00:21:59] They [00:22:00] basically use Dittler Brothers to print a ton of the promotional marking campaigns that they're doing.

[00:22:04] They are super impressed with how seriously Jerry seems to take security in his job. One of Simon Marketing's biggest clients, as we've already alluded to, is McDonald's and their relationship is now stepping up a gear as they were on the cusp of launching one of the biggest promotional campaigns to date the McDonald's monopoly games

[00:22:27] The campaign is worth $500 million to some [00:22:30] marketing, which basically accounts for 95% of their total revenue in the years that they run this. So it's huge.

[00:22:37] Adam Cox: That is not good for any agency

[00:22:38] Kyle Risi: No, absolutely. And if they wanted this to be a repeat thing with McDonald's, then they were going to need to really impress them.

[00:22:43] So some are marketing needed. Someone who was vigilant in overseeing the security of this new promotional game. And from what they could tell Jerry is basically their man.

[00:22:52] So in 1987, Jerry joined Simon Marketing. They run the first Monopoly game. It's a massive success. [00:23:00] So much so that McDonald's decides that they will not only run. The campaign again, but they want to do it twice a year, every year.

[00:23:07] Adam Cox: So are they still using Dittler publications or printing or

[00:23:10] Kyle Risi: whatever? Yeah. So they're printing it. Simon Marketing is in charge of designing and sorting out the game. Sure. On behalf of McDonald's. So they, they're working partners

[00:23:19] Adam Cox: and so Jerry's moved across to Simon Marketing.

[00:23:22] Kyle Risi: Not quite. So it's difficult to explain. He, yes, he's employed by Simon Marketing, but he is, Simon Marketing's man at [00:23:30] Dittler Brothers.

[00:23:30] Adam Cox: Okay.

[00:23:31] Kyle Risi: So he is 'cause remember Dittler Brothers is managing the printing of them. So he is very often at Dittler Brothers, even though he works for some marketing. I see. 'cause he does all the security across those two things and it's, he's got license to go between the two.

[00:23:42] Adam Cox: But Dittler Brothers doesn't, I mean they sound good, but are they big enough for someone like McDonald's or are they quite a still small time

[00:23:49] Kyle Risi: company? No, they're big. So Dittler Brothers, they have a dedicated setup of printing machines that run 24 hours a day just for McDonald's. Right. They print Adam 500 million game pieces [00:24:00] just for one stint of the biannual monopolies game. Mm-hmm. So that's huge.

[00:24:04] Jerry's role is to oversee the printing of all the collectible pieces, but also the instant win game pieces.

[00:24:10] The instant win game pieces that are printed. The security around these in particular is taken very seriously. Jerry is in charge of ensuring basically that they are locked in this really super secure vault with multiple layers of security.

[00:24:22] Now, I'm talking two combination locks. There's a bunch of keys. You also have to enter in a pin number. It's just ridiculous when there's two people [00:24:30] there as well,

[00:24:30] Adam Cox: like a retina scan.

[00:24:31] Kyle Risi: Don't think a retina scan at this point, but I wouldn't be surprised if they had the technology back then that there would be a retina scan involved.

[00:24:38] Adam Cox: I see.

[00:24:39] Kyle Risi: Jerry is also in charge though of the distribution of these instant wind game pieces to the packaging manufacturers, factories once they've actually been printed.

[00:24:48] And the way it works is that Jerry will basically place the pieces inside an envelope, which is then locked securely inside a briefcase, and then accompanied by another security agent they will fly out to the [00:25:00] McDonald's packaging factories across the country and when they get there. Jerry will be like, bring me a pallet of Big Mac containers or whatever. And so the workers will then bring through this pallet. He'll then pick a stack, which he'll then place instant winner stickers on. then When the other security agent is happy, they'll then mix up the batch and then tell the factory to distribute these.

[00:25:20] As a job, Adam, Jerry gets paid handsomely. Like he gets paid like $70,000 a year. Now remember that's 1988 money.

[00:25:26] Adam Cox: Yeah, he does all right for himself.

[00:25:28] Kyle Risi: So after a couple of years of [00:25:30] running the McDonald's Monopoly game, he has the thought that pops into his head. Why send the instant winners out to be randomly found by some chump when I can pick the winner myself and take a nice big fat kickback in the process.

[00:25:43] Adam Cox: So he's starting to get greedy. ' 'cause that must, if he's the one that's putting on those stickers, it must be kind of like, ah, like who's gonna open this or whatever and wouldn't we, some

[00:25:52] Kyle Risi: drug dealer somewhere. How? I don't want that.

[00:25:55] Adam Cox: Yeah. Or a homeless man.

[00:25:57] Kyle Risi: Oh, well you do want that.

[00:25:58] Adam Cox: Well, no, Jerry [00:26:00] doesn't. He wants to give it to someone he knows clearly.

[00:26:02] Kyle Risi: Sure. Yes. So Jerry starts more, he's not gonna be going straight for the $1 million prize initially.

[00:26:09] He needs to kind of prove that the process works first. Right. He doesn't wanna get caught.

[00:26:13] So he swaps out a $25,000 instant winner piece. He replaced it with some worthless McFlurry level kind of piece.

[00:26:20] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:26:21] Kyle Risi: And then he seals the envelope up as if nothing happened.

[00:26:23] Adam Cox: So where does he do this? 'cause this, is this not like really heightened security?

[00:26:26] Kyle Risi: No. So at this point after they come off the printing line, [00:26:30] he'll kind of peel them off, put them all into the envelopes.

[00:26:32] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:26:32] Kyle Risi: He'll put them into the safe. At that point, he's probably just stealing them. And then in its place, he's just popping a random worthless one.

[00:26:38] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:26:39] Kyle Risi: When he gets to the factory, he is the one then pulling out that McFlurry One, no one can see it. 'cause remember it's sealed. He's got a little cover on him.

[00:26:45] Adam Cox: I see.

[00:26:45] Kyle Risi: Even if someone else is doing it, it's not gonna matter because it's got a little flap on it. As soon as you lift that flap, then it doesn't stick down anymore.

[00:26:52] Adam Cox: Got you.

[00:26:53] Kyle Risi: So then he's gonna stick that on there. But they're trusting him that he has put the, the big game piece in there. Right.

[00:26:58] But he's stolen the [00:27:00] 25,000 instant winner piece and. When he gets home that night, he starts thinking about who he can possibly give this piece to. And so a few weeks later at a family barbecue, he slips the 25,000 instant winner apiece to his stepbrother, Marvin, and he later says, when asked why Marvin?

[00:27:18] Why'd you give it to him? And basically Jerry Shrugs and he says, I don't know, I just, I just wanted to show him I could do something. Okay.

[00:27:26] Adam Cox: And also is it like, what if he gets caught? Marvin's fault.

[00:27:29] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Which [00:27:30] basically translates to, Jerry basically thinks that he's the loser of the family.

[00:27:34] Adam Cox: Yeah, I guess so. He didn't make the Marines.

[00:27:36] Kyle Risi: No, he

[00:27:36] Adam Cox: didn't. And now he's just putting labels on things and sending them out.

[00:27:39] Kyle Risi: So here's a $25,000 game piece. Please stop telling mom and dad I'm a loser.

[00:27:43] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:27:44] Kyle Risi: So next Jerry takes a trip to his local butchers. The butcher hears that Jerry runs the security for McDonald's Monopoly and is super impressed by this line. He's like, do you know what? I really wish I could win? And Jerry is like, funny you say that.

[00:27:58] Adam Cox: I can make it happen.

[00:27:59] Kyle Risi: I can [00:28:00] literally make that happen. And the butcher is like, really? And Jerry is like, yes, but not for you.

[00:28:06] Adam Cox: You haven't got enough money?

[00:28:07] Kyle Risi: No. Basically it's because we're neighbors, right? And we're also mates. Mm-hmm. So it's gonna look dodgy. Yeah. So he needs to be really aware of that. And so the butcher is like, all right, what if it's not me Who claims it? What if it's a trusted friend? Maybe someone outta state who has no connection to us, . Plus I will give you a cut of the winnings, Jerry.

[00:28:25] And so long story short, Jerry hands over a $10,000 instant win [00:28:30] piece to the butcher. The butcher's mate ends up claiming the prize, and a few weeks later, Jerry gets a nice, sexy kickback of $2,000.

[00:28:38] Adam Cox: So he's gotten 20% from that?

[00:28:40] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm.

[00:28:41] Adam Cox: Wow. Not

[00:28:41] Kyle Risi: bad. Not bad. And there's no connection.

[00:28:43] Adam Cox: And then the butcher's probably gotta give a cut to the person that's outta state or whatever.

[00:28:46] So is there any probably just earn himself maybe six grand.

[00:28:49] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

[00:28:49] Adam Cox: But still for doing nothing.

[00:28:51] Kyle Risi: And the point is no one clocks a thing. Right? The entire plan works perfectly.

[00:28:54] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:28:54] Kyle Risi: And so Jerry starts thinking of ways that he can pretty much scale the entire operation up. Because that [00:29:00] means bigger and bigger kickbacks.

[00:29:01] Adam Cox: See, this is the thing. This is always people's it too greedy downfall. If he could have just carried on doing like a 10 K every other month, he probably would've been fine.

[00:29:10] Kyle Risi: That's right. I. But just as Jerry is about to turn this entire thing into a proper little operation, he gets hit with a massive problem because other people have had the exact same idea that he has.

[00:29:22] Oh. But further down the chain,

[00:29:24] so a 17-year-old McDonald's worker steals like a ton of game pieces that gets sent to the [00:29:30] restaurant for that Sweepstake purposes.

[00:29:31] Adam Cox: Got you. Yeah.

[00:29:32] Kyle Risi: He ends up selling them online. He eventually gets busted at McDonald's, goes into full on panic because it is a potential PR nightmare.

[00:29:40] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:29:40] Kyle Risi: They end up overhauling the entire security protocol across the entire chain. That includes production, handling, and distribution.

[00:29:46] And basically the aim is to directly cut down on anyone's access to these game pieces, and that includes Jerry's access. They don't suspect him in any way. They're just like, this is the security [00:30:00] for it, right?

[00:30:00] Adam Cox: Yeah. They've gotta treat everyone the same.

[00:30:02] Kyle Risi: Exactly.

[00:30:02] McDonald's goal is that no one gets any meaningful contact with any of the instant win pieces unless there is a check or balance in place. which means that Now Jerry isn't cutting out the game pieces from the printing sheets, that's now someone else's job completely.

[00:30:16] Then someone else will put the pieces into these envelopes, which are now sealed with a tamper proof sticker that is printed by a company in Hong Kong.

[00:30:24] So you can't fake that.

[00:30:25] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:30:26] Kyle Risi: Jerry is still involved, however, but it's in the [00:30:30] distribution that he's involved in. So even that gets a bit tighter because now on the day that he heads out to the packaging factories, he is not the one to go into the vault to collect the pieces that's handed to him by someone else.

[00:30:43] From there, he will then travel with the second security officer. So that stays the same, they head to the factory, but when they get to the factory, someone else then affixes the playing piece to the package as not him.

[00:30:54] So Jerry only basically gets contact with the game pieces during delivery. That is [00:31:00] it

[00:31:00] Adam Cox: mine. So he is almost like just a delivery person

[00:31:03] Kyle Risi: Exactly.

[00:31:03] Adam Cox: Who just moves, helps assist moving it along.

[00:31:06] Kyle Risi: Exactly. And while he's doing the delivery, he is with someone else the whole time, but also the game pieces are in an envelope with a Tam Seal sticker on it that is only printed in Hong Kong

[00:31:16] Adam Cox: so yeah, he can't do anymore?

[00:31:17] Kyle Risi: No. This is pretty much the process for like six years. There is just no way for Jerry to get access to the pieces without it being obvious.

[00:31:25] Adam Cox: It must be killing him thinking, oh, I got away with it before, how, and I reckon for those six years, he's [00:31:30] planning, how do I get back into this?

[00:31:31] Kyle Risi: Yes.

[00:31:32] But then Adam, in 1995, a package lands on Jerry's desk. When he opens it, he realizes that the company in Hong Kong that makes the tam proof stickers has accidentally sent him the latest batch.

[00:31:47] Adam Cox: that's lucky.

[00:31:48] Kyle Risi: And from that moment on, everything changes because now Jerry can open up the envelope, he can swap out the instant win pieces.

[00:31:54] He can reseal it with a new tamperproof sticker and it'll look completely untouched. But [00:32:00] there is still one obstacle that he needs to overcome and that is the second security officer who's always with him when he travels.

[00:32:06] If he's going to resume this operation, he needs to basically try and get around her.

[00:32:10] Eventually it dawns on him. He can use gender dynamics and he can leverage the one thing a woman can't do that a man can.

[00:32:21] Adam Cox: Oh, penis model?

[00:32:22] Kyle Risi: It's gonna become a penis model. Close. Genuinely. Oh really? Genuinely close. He's basically [00:32:30] gonna nip to the men room.

[00:32:30] Adam Cox: Oh yeah. And so while he is, whilst he's there, he's obviously doing a bit a switcheroo.

[00:32:35] Kyle Risi: I thought you were gonna say, oh, while he says it's gonna do some penis model.

[00:32:38] Adam Cox: Well, yeah.

[00:32:39] Kyle Risi: Really what you sound, you vinyl, that's what you're doing, right?

[00:32:42] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:32:42] Kyle Risi: So basically in the lie he'll lock himself in the stall. He'll then open up the envelopes, he'll replace the instant game pieces, reseal the envelope.

[00:32:50] The entire process literally takes three minutes tops. 'cause he is only like taking two or three out. Right. So

[00:32:53] Adam Cox: he is taking some pieces already with him to do the switch. I'm guessing these are just basic P pieces that he can get his hands [00:33:00] on.

[00:33:00] Kyle Risi: Yes. So he would've like found those. He can get them anywhere. They could be last year's ones, I don't know.

[00:33:04] Adam Cox: Fine. Okay. So he can do that sort of switch.

[00:33:06] Kyle Risi: So like the whole process, like I said, takes a couple minutes longer if he actually does need a Wii and it's a little bit suspicious

[00:33:13] Adam Cox: So why is he allowed to go to the toilet without that other person?

[00:33:16] Kyle Risi: Remember they are a team, right? They're not suspicious of each other. Mm-hmm. So The process is that they always need to ensure that the pieces are always in, inside of at least one of them.

[00:33:24] Adam Cox: Yeah, I understand that. I mean, what you should have done in that scenario or what the law is like someone has [00:33:30] to stay in. Public view. Public view with them. Yeah. Not take them to a closed door.

[00:33:34] Kyle Risi: That's right. Yeah. Major oversight, I would say.

[00:33:37] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:33:37] Kyle Risi: And so now Adam, basically, he's got a way to get hold of the pieces, but he still doesn't know if he can actually move the $1 million win without McDonald's digging into who the claimant is, and then potentially tracing it back to him. Right? Mm-hmm. He needs to be able to test that out first.

[00:33:51] So in a bit of a strange strategic move, he decides that the first million dollar winner is going to be St. Jude's [00:34:00] Children's Research Hospital in Tennessee.

[00:34:02] Adam Cox: No one will suspect that

[00:34:04] Kyle Risi: Exactly. But this does two things basically. He knows that if the children's charity wins, this will attract a lot of public interests, which will then allow him to follow this much better from afar.

[00:34:17] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:34:17] Kyle Risi: Without asking questions inside McDonald's, he can just see what the media's saying about it.

[00:34:21] Adam Cox: Interesting. And I guess at this point, like he's letting them win.

[00:34:25] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm.

[00:34:25] Adam Cox: And so he just wants to see how it plays out.

[00:34:27] Kyle Risi: Yes. But also the second thing [00:34:30] is, is that if he does get busted, he can use this as a defense to say, well, I was just playing Robin Hood.

[00:34:35] Adam Cox: Interesting.

[00:34:35] Kyle Risi: And the hope is that a jury would then see this as an over act and there would be softer on him if he ever got prosecuted.

[00:34:41] Adam Cox: Wow. He's quite okay. It's quite smart. I don't like that. Sure.

[00:34:44] Kyle Risi: That's where it ends.

[00:34:45] Adam Cox: Okay.

[00:34:46] Kyle Risi: But basically

[00:34:47] what that is, it's, you ready for this?

[00:34:50] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:34:50] Kyle Risi: this is get outta jail card.

[00:34:51] Adam Cox: Ah, ah. See what you did

[00:34:53] there.

[00:34:54] Kyle Risi: So on the 12th of November, 1995, a donation clerk at St. Jude's [00:35:00] Hospital. opens up an anonymous letter and inside it she finds a greeting card and inside that she finds the $1 million instant win game piece. They are completely freaked out.

[00:35:09] Obviously this is gonna be incredible for the kids.

[00:35:12] Adam Cox: So they've just been sent it. It's not like one of them's gone to McDonald's and

[00:35:16] Kyle Risi: Yeah. So he has just sent it to them in the post inside the Greek email.

[00:35:20] Adam Cox: Well that sounds suspicious.

[00:35:21] Kyle Risi: It is, but it looks like it's some kind of charity thing. Right. Some good, good doer.

[00:35:25]

[00:35:25] see.

[00:35:26] Kyle Risi: But that's the point, right? Like it's amazing. But also they're wondering who [00:35:30] the hell sends an anonymous million dollar playing piece in the post like this to a charity? Who would do that?

[00:35:35] Adam Cox: But if I was McDonald's, I would go, that's a bit odd.

[00:35:38] Kyle Risi: Yes,

[00:35:38] Adam Cox: I know you can't question it enough to take the money back.

[00:35:41] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm.

[00:35:41] Adam Cox: But that that would still make me like look at security around that period.

[00:35:45] Kyle Risi: Yes. But also I would think. I would claim the piece myself as the person who found it, pay the taxes or whatever. 'cause in America you pay taxes. You don't in the uk. Ha ha. And then give them a portion of it.

[00:35:56] So at least I have some of it.

[00:35:57] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:35:58] Kyle Risi: Do you know what I mean? Yeah. So this is very [00:36:00] generous and therefore in my opinion, feels a little bit suspicious.

[00:36:04] So there is of course a bunch of intrigue for a while, but the only clue that they really have about who sent it is a postmark, which suggests that it was sent from somewhere in Dallas the day after Thanksgiving.

[00:36:15] So again, a lot of people are really generous around the holiday times, right?

[00:36:19] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm. True.

[00:36:20] Kyle Risi: St. Jude's, they claim the price. McDonald's, they rush into authenticate the win. They all agree it is legit. McDonald's and some juice, they hold this big [00:36:30] press conference with McDonald's using this obviously as a bit of pr.

[00:36:34] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:36:34] Kyle Risi: What is the PR on that? McDonald's gives kids diabetes and then gives a million dollars to a children's charity to help treat the diabetes. Of course, Ronald McDonald is there. He hands, St. Jude a massive check. They also bring in a bunch of other kids who are like, yay, insulin.

[00:36:50] But for the New York Times, as much as they love this story, they really wanna know who this anonymous donor is.

[00:36:57] Adam Cox: Exactly.

[00:36:57] Kyle Risi: And for a time, [00:37:00] this is where kind of Jerry is testing everything, right? He's on tender hooks. He's expecting someone to try and look into him, but he wants to see how foolproof he is. Anonymity is basically mm-hmm.

[00:37:10] And honestly in the end, other than the postmark originating from Dallas, the New York Times really don't have anything to go on. And so this is Jerry in the clear and it gives him the confidence that he can possibly get away with this.

[00:37:24] So Jerry goes back to his butcher and he tells him that the operation is back on and he wants to try again.

[00:37:29] [00:37:30] And it's the same deal as before. It cannot be the butcher himself.

[00:37:33] It needs to be someone else that he trusts. And this time it'll be for the $200,000 piece, which he will give in exchange for $45,000.

[00:37:43] Adam Cox: Nice. That's a nice little, um, of that.

[00:37:45] Kyle Risi: Now the butcher is like, my sister is the perfect person. I trust her implicitly. Plus she could really do with the money. And she lives in Maryland, so she's miles away.

[00:37:56] The plan is that the butcher will then visit his city of Maryland. He will then hand her [00:38:00] the instant game piece. She'll then go to McDonald's, she'll buy a Big Mac or whatever, and then she'll call in the win.

[00:38:05] Typical stuff. We know this, except when the butcher goes to Maryland, he doesn't give the game piece to his sister. He claims the money himself.

[00:38:14] Adam Cox: Oh. But he said he wasn't gonna do that,

[00:38:16] Kyle Risi: and Jerry only finds out when he sees him on tele grinning like an idiot holding a giant check for $200,000.

[00:38:24] Adam Cox: Right. So that's the connection now to Jerry.

[00:38:27] Kyle Risi: Yeah. So it's not ideal because now there's a direct line [00:38:30] between Jerry and the winner. Mm-hmm. Basically, But it does get worse because the butcher also stiffs Jerry out of his $45,000 cut.

[00:38:37] Adam Cox: Really?

[00:38:38] Kyle Risi: He only gives him 4,000.

[00:38:39] Adam Cox: I was gonna ask, how trustworthy is this butcher?

[00:38:43] Kyle Risi: He is not, and Jerry is furious and the butcher is like, well what are you gonna do? You're gonna call the cops.

[00:38:48] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:38:48] Kyle Risi: And Jerry's like, good point.

[00:38:49] Adam Cox: Smart.

[00:38:50] Kyle Risi: That day basically, Jerry learns a very hard lesson on who to trust when it comes to crime. If you can't trust your butcher, Adam, who the [00:39:00] hell can you trust in this world?

[00:39:01] Adam Cox: Well, yeah. No one. Butcher is the most trustworthy person there ever is.

[00:39:05] Kyle Risi: Well, there's one other person. You can trust

[00:39:07] Adam Cox: Yeah. Your

[00:39:07] mom?

[00:39:07] Kyle Risi: No. How about a mob boss?

[00:39:10] Adam Cox: Oh, I mean, that wouldn't have been top of my list.

[00:39:14] Kyle Risi: So a bit bruised by the butchers betrayal. Jerry is one day catching a flight out from Atlanta Airport when he actually strikes up a conversation with a man by the name of Ano Colombo. Adam, he literally looks like Al Capone. It is so uncanny when you [00:39:30] see his mugshot. It's mental.

[00:39:31] Adam Cox: So is he like, are you in the mob?

[00:39:33] Kyle Risi: Well, they get to talking. Jerry asks, where are you flying to? Colombo then pulls out a fat stack of like a hundred dollars bills and he is like, I'm off to Atlanta City baby. And then before, literally, before Jerry can even tell him anything about himself, Colombo then tells him that he's a member of the Colombo crime family, one of the big five Mafia families in New York City.

[00:39:54] Adam Cox: Wow.

[00:39:54] Kyle Risi: You gotta remember though, like he knows nothing about Jerry at this point. For all he knows. [00:40:00] Jerry could be a cop.

[00:40:01] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:40:01] Kyle Risi: Which he used to be.

[00:40:02] Adam Cox: Oh yeah. Good point.

[00:40:03] Kyle Risi: Yeah. So he just like, oh yeah. By the way, I'm a mob boss.

[00:40:07] Adam Cox: But to be fair, the police probably know about. This guy anyway.

[00:40:10] Kyle Risi: Possibly. Yeah. He is not hiding it, but just you don't tell someone that a random stranger.

[00:40:14] Anyway, he tells Jerry that he now lives in South Carolina, where he runs a few underground casinos, but also that he recently opened up a new strip club, which is really proud of, because initially the zoning laws of the town prohibited him from opening up a strip club.

[00:40:27] So to get around this, he [00:40:30] registers the strip club as a church

[00:40:31] Adam Cox: really?

[00:40:32] Kyle Risi: And the authorities, they end up rubber stamping it. And then of course to the horror on the day of opening, they discover that it's a strip club that he has called the Church of the Fuzzy Bunnies.

[00:40:42] Adam Cox: The fuzzy bunnies. What? And are they dressed in like. religious ropes and then they just whip them off.

[00:40:48] Kyle Risi: Yeah. So like, when they're doing the ceremony stuff, they read the Bible for a bit, uhhuh, and then at the end of the service all the pews turn into, like fold out strip tables.

[00:40:55] Adam Cox: No,

[00:40:56] Kyle Risi: no. I dunno they don't do that. But that's what I imagine. And [00:41:00] Jerry is like, damn, this guy knows how to skirt around the rules.

[00:41:04] Adam Cox: Yeah, that's true.

[00:41:05] Kyle Risi: Maybe just, maybe he's the kind of guy that I can trust more than my butcher, more than my mother and someone who might not stiff me.

[00:41:14] Adam Cox: I mean, I'm gonna say it doesn't end well.

[00:41:17] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm.

[00:41:17] Adam Cox: Because we're talking about it.

[00:41:18] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm.

[00:41:18] Adam Cox: So it probably doesn't end well.

[00:41:20] Kyle Risi: So apparently he tells Jerry, oh, by the. The reason why he opened up the Church of the Fuzzy Buzzies is because he tells Jerry that God had come to him in a [00:41:30] dream and told him to start up a church.

[00:41:31] Adam Cox: I don't think he meant a straight father.

[00:41:34] Kyle Risi: I know. So it's like, ah, yeah, I will do, I'll turn this into the Church of the Fuzzy Bunnies.

[00:41:39] Adam Cox: Ah.

[00:41:40] Kyle Risi: Uh, so Jerry tells Colombo, what he does for a living. Colombo. Of course, from a notable crime. Family sees dollar signs and before you know it, they have teamed up to test the process.

[00:41:51] Jerry gives him an instant win piece for a car, which Colombo claims for himself, but instead of obviously taking the car, he ends up taking the cash value, which [00:42:00] I think. What most people would do.

[00:42:01] Everything goes off without a hitch. There's no red flags that are raised. And so from that moment, Colombo and Jerry become business associates,

[00:42:09] which is when Colombo starts referring to Jerry as Uncle Jerry.

[00:42:14] Adam Cox: Ah. 'cause he's now joined the mob.

[00:42:15] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Guess as like a

[00:42:17] Adam Cox: classic. It's uncle.

[00:42:18] Kyle Risi: Uncle

[00:42:18] Adam Cox: Jerry.

[00:42:19] Kyle Risi: Uncle Jerry. Yeah.

[00:42:20] Adam Cox: I dunno if he's Italian.

[00:42:21] Kyle Risi: Uh, yeah, he is.

[00:42:22] Adam Cox: Okay.

[00:42:23] Kyle Risi: Good. Prime family. New York.

[00:42:24] Adam Cox: Just checking. I don't wanna like

[00:42:25] Kyle Risi: generalize. Jerry's not Italian. He's like from Ohio.

[00:42:28] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:42:28] Kyle Risi: But yeah, [00:42:30] so the arrangement is that Uncle Jerry will filter through the game pieces to Colombo at the start of every game. Colombo will then distribute them through his connections and facilitate any kickbacks to Jerry after he takes his own cut.

[00:42:42] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:42:42] Kyle Risi: The first two winners, Colombo picks are his. father and brother-in-law.

[00:42:46] Adam Cox: Okay, so this is where it really starts to go wrong.

[00:42:48] Kyle Risi: Yes. So these are people of the same family. Which we know is the red flag that agent Doug Matthews picks up on later on.

[00:42:55] Adam Cox: But is Uncle Jerry happy with this because he's, is he not like, oh, [00:43:00] can we try and keep it to these people?

[00:43:01] Kyle Risi: I think they definitely have that conversation. But this is now done, right?

[00:43:04] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:43:04] Kyle Risi: So they know that they've potentially flown close to the sun at this point, and so they start to stay. Clear away from direct family members for a while.

[00:43:12] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:43:12] Kyle Risi: So while Colombo and his wife Robin are uming and ing about who to pick next, Robin suggests her best friend Gloria. She isn't family, she's also a woman. 'Cause the last two has just been men.

[00:43:25] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:43:26] Kyle Risi: And they can spread things out geographically in a way [00:43:30] because they'll use an address of one of Colombo's associates in Belfort, South Carolina and basically it won't obviously raising the red flags. Mm-hmm.

[00:43:38] So bring Gloria to meet Jerry in Jacksonville, Florida. They agree on a fee of $40,000 for the $1 million price game piece. So that's a slightly smaller margin. Gloria has to remortgage her house, Adam, to secure the cash.

[00:43:52] Adam Cox: Ah, I see. So Jerry's kind of caught onto this, like, I'm not just giving you the game piece. You have to give me a down payment

[00:43:58] Kyle Risi: Yes. I think he's playing [00:44:00] it a bit safe. He doesn't wanna get stiffed again.

[00:44:01] So once Gloria gets the money from the bank, they then arrange to meet up on a long stretch of Interstate 95 where they then make the exchange.

[00:44:09] Jerry hands her the game piece in like this little airport liquor bottle, which is uh, was a strange detail I guess. Maybe he's put it in there with tweezers. So he does again, any fingerprints on it.

[00:44:19] Adam Cox: Yeah,

[00:44:19] Kyle Risi: Columbo, then coaches Gloria on a plausible backstory and then how to fake the instant win-win. She claims the prize 'cause you've gotta be like surprised, right? Like, ah my God I won.

[00:44:28] Adam Cox: Yeah, you should be

[00:44:29] Kyle Risi: [00:44:30] Kaba then drives them to a local McDonald's while she goes in and buys her Big Mac or whatever. This essentially gives them a timestamp for the purchase, right?

[00:44:37] So if anyone ever questions it, then they could be like, yeah, this is when I got it. I was at this McDonald's. You can see here's my receipt, et cetera. But a bit of a safety name.

[00:44:46] Adam Cox: I always would think like something like this, McDonald's or whatever company, they would know where the winning piece always goes to or something like that. They'd always go, oh, we know it's being sent to Chicago, or this, that and the other. So how, I'm [00:45:00] guessing they didn't.

[00:45:00] Kyle Risi: No, I don't think so. 'cause it's just random, right?

[00:45:02] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:45:03] Kyle Risi: So a little while later she then calls in the win and it, it is so obvious just how fucking fake her story is. I guess it's also because we know she's lying that it seems so obvious. But for a simple story, she goes into all this detail talking about how she was cleaning her car and then she wasn't going to clean out the ashtray, but then she did clean out the ashtray and then she wasn't gonna check the game pieces that she pulled out of the ashtray. But then she did check the [00:45:30] pieces that came out the ashtray.

[00:45:31] And then at first, when she saw that it was an instant million dollar win, she didn't really understand what she was looking at and she wasn't gonna check again. But then she did decide to check again. so It was just like, blah, blah, blah. It was just too much detail. Do you know what I mean? So it just seemed quite guilty to me.

[00:45:46] Adam Cox: But I guess she's been coached to make it seem like.

[00:45:49] Kyle Risi: I don't think very well

[00:45:50] Adam Cox: to make it seem really mundane what she was doing. 'cause normally I would've thought if I bought a McDonald's with something like that on, I'm in McDonald's, I'm gonna look at it first thing, oh, I haven't won.

[00:45:59] [00:46:00] Throw it away.

[00:46:00] Kyle Risi: Sure.

[00:46:01] Adam Cox: So to be like, oh, I didn't really think about it. I guess it could happen.

[00:46:04] Kyle Risi: By this point, it's now the late 1990s and the entire operation is just a matter of routine. They are really relaxed, they're really confident. Of course, with all this confidence, I'm called Jerry. Starts to get a little bit sloppy because by this point

[00:46:18] colombo has enriched a lot of his own family members, through various maneuverings. And Jerry decides that if he's doing that with his family, maybe I should do the exact same thing.

[00:46:29] He gives his [00:46:30] stepbrother another instant win game piece, and he's like, please don't tell mom and dad I'm a loser. Um, he also gives his brother-in-law a million dollar instant piece win, which he doesn't actually end up cashing in because apparently chickens out.

[00:46:42] Apparently he flushes down the toilet

[00:46:43] Adam Cox: because I guess he thinks it looks suspicious, right?

[00:46:46] Kyle Risi: Possibly.

[00:46:47] Adam Cox: So how many pieces has he given out at this point?

[00:46:49] Kyle Risi: A lot, right? In total, he's basically stolen 60 pieces.

[00:46:52] Adam Cox: 60 pieces? Yeah. And how many has he given to his family?

[00:46:55] Kyle Risi: A lot.

[00:46:56] Adam Cox: Wow.

[00:46:56] Kyle Risi: A lot. Then when Jerry is at a family wedding, he gives his [00:47:00] nephew a $200,000 instant win game piece in exchange for $45,000. But while they're negotiating his cousin over here and he is like, I want one too. And so Jerry hooks him up as well. By 1998, Adam, there are no legitimate winners anymore.

[00:47:15] Adam Cox: Really?

[00:47:16] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

[00:47:17] Adam Cox: So every single big winner. I guess we're talking about here is actually someone that Jerry's put in contact with.

[00:47:23] Kyle Risi: Yes, exactly. The big winners, like people are still winning Mac McFlurries and McDonald's and fries and stuff, but there's no like big [00:47:30] prizes anymore. He's taking them all.

[00:47:31] Adam Cox: But surely someone at head office is going, why are all these winners in wherever they are or something? Yeah, they must,

[00:47:37] Kyle Risi: they're not really clicking. 'cause remember the anonymous tip comes from a member of the public uhhuh, and we'll explain who in a second. It never flags for McDonald's.

[00:47:44] So Yeah. I guess to the point where he's like, well, McDonald's aren't picking this up. I can afford to be a little more sloppy.

[00:47:50] Adam Cox: Mm.

[00:47:51] Kyle Risi: But it also means that by the time he's stealing all of the pieces, those little trips to the toilet in the airport are taken way longer. In just three minutes [00:48:00] 'cause he's swapping them all out, right? Mm-hmm. So he is like, I have the enchiladas last name

[00:48:03] Adam Cox: again Jerry.

[00:48:06] Kyle Risi: So, as well as becoming a little bit too comfortable with who he gives the winning pieces to, he also starts parading his money, which again, as we know, a massive mistake, right?

[00:48:15] He buys himself a fancy new house for him and his new wife, who apparently claims that she knew nothing about what was going on.

[00:48:21] Like she literally thinks Jerry's family are just really lucky at playing McDonald's Monopoly. His vacations, rather than a week in Orlando, they are now like [00:48:30] chartered yachts in the Mediterranean and places like that who starts collecting classic cars and joins as hoity-toity kind of car club, where mysteriously many of the members start coincidentally finding winning game pieces as well.

[00:48:42] He also gets really in there with Colombo and his associates. So he is starting to hang out with kind of the mob boss people every time he's in town or whatever.

[00:48:48] But I also noticed that they stopped calling him Jerry altogether, and they start calling him Geraldo Constantino, which makes me wonder whether or not he was too white to hang out with them. So they're like, we're [00:49:00] going to change your name.

[00:49:01] Adam Cox: Yeah, we can't call you Jerry.

[00:49:04] Kyle Risi: So Jerry is riding high, but then one day Adam, things take a turn. When Colombo starts sleeping with his personal trainer, his wife Robin, she finds out and so things are very awkward between them.

[00:49:15] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:49:16] Kyle Risi: Robin is of course making plans to leave him, but before she does, they both get caught up. In a very bad car accident and Colombo dies as a result of his injuries.

[00:49:27] Adam Cox: Oh, shit.

[00:49:27] Kyle Risi: So if Jerry, not to [00:49:30] dwell on what's happened with Colombo 'cause it's terrible, but to move the story forward, if Jerry wants to keep living the lifestyle that he's become accustomed to, he's going to need to find a new associate to help him find fake winners.

[00:49:41] Adam Cox: Has Colombo not got like a second or like a right hand man?

[00:49:44] Kyle Risi: I think through a bunch of the associates that he has met over the years, I think he's going to speak to a few people and he is gonna find the perfect guy.

[00:49:51] Adam Cox: I see.

[00:49:52] Kyle Risi: And so in 1999, Jerry starts putting the feeders out for a new middle man through a connection, at a dinner party. He meets a guy called Andrew [00:50:00] Glom, so that's G-L-O-M-B.

[00:50:02] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:50:03] Kyle Risi: He's basically a gambling addict and he's just been released from a 12 year prison stint for smuggling 400 pounds of cocaine. There's a problem. Andrew doesn't know any straight, late, normal people

[00:50:15] Adam Cox: anymore.

[00:50:15] Kyle Risi: He doesn't know anyone. Everyone in his orbits are either ex-cons, hustlers, drug smugglers, anyone who's exactly like he is.

[00:50:23] And so the moment Andrew gets brought into the fold, you suddenly get this run of like eight different million dollar [00:50:30] winners, all with really sketchy backgrounds.

[00:50:32] So every time McDonald's will do like a PR piece or an advert or whatever, you'll see a picture of the winner and they'll have like grease back, slick hair, leather jacket rings on.

[00:50:41] They look like gangsters and they just look really scumbag.

[00:50:44] Adam Cox: I missed. I bet the first time that happened, McDonald's are like, Ugh, great. This is not a great winner.

[00:50:48] Kyle Risi: No.

[00:50:49] Adam Cox: And then like four or five winners along, they're like, oh, why do we keep getting these people?

[00:50:53] Kyle Risi: Yeah. People are like, hang on a minute. It's like McDonald's running a loyalty scheme for the mob.

[00:50:59] Adam Cox: I mean, the mob [00:51:00] can eat McDonald's, right?

[00:51:01] Kyle Risi: I

[00:51:01] Adam Cox: guess there's a good chance that they could win.

[00:51:03] Kyle Risi: It's just so funny. The first guy that they bring on is a known convict who runs a racketeering operation out of his Italian restaurant in Pittsburgh. He's so sleazy, Adam, when you see the pictures of him.

[00:51:15] So none of this from a PR perspective, looks very good in retrospect. Again, no one's clicking just yet. Mm-hmm. But I think once you look at it all, in retrospect, people, McDonald's is oh yeah, this is not a golden moment of McDonald's.

[00:51:28] Meanwhile, Jerry is still handing out smaller [00:51:30] prizes to people within his own circle. He ends up giving $50,000 to his chiropractor, who also happens to be his psychic. So not a winning combination at all. As a

[00:51:40] Adam Cox: psychic you won't get called.

[00:51:41] Kyle Risi: Exactly. She fails to foresee that Jerry. Was about to get busted.

[00:51:49] So remember Colombo, right? He ended up dying in a horrific car accident with his wife. I know we didn't dwell on it, but he ends up dying. Well, Robin, of course, she was involved in that accident and [00:52:00] she manages to walk away almost uninjured.

[00:52:02] Colombo's family. However, they are convinced that she had something to do with that accident, and so the Colombo family decide to just cut her off financially, which sends her down a very dark path of petty crime just to support the lifestyle and to support her son.

[00:52:16] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:52:17] Kyle Risi: She's not good at it because she does get busted and she is sent to jail. This means that custody of her son goes to Colombo's parents, right? When she's finally releasing the year 2000, Robin is dead set on getting her son [00:52:30] back. Like she's not gonna stop at anything, but by this point. The grandparents, they don't wanna give the son up.

[00:52:35] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:52:36] Kyle Risi: Robin says in an interview, Frankie is their first grandchild. You know how Sicilians are, you know what I mean? That kind of thing. And so they're ready to play dirty. So after a fierce court case forces them to hand Robin son over. Rick Dent at the little FBI office in Jacksonville receives an anonymous tip at Robin's father. Her brother, her best friend had all [00:53:00] won the McDonald's Monopoly $1 million prize.

[00:53:03] Adam Cox: I see.

[00:53:05] Kyle Risi: So sure is a lucky family. Right. But yep. This is who reported the anonymous tip

[00:53:09] Adam Cox: and is it one of Colombo's parents?

[00:53:12] Kyle Risi: Yeah, it's definitely on that side of the family. Mm-hmm. Because of course, Robin has got her son back and they didn't want to give her back.

[00:53:17] You know how Sicilians are,

[00:53:19] Adam Cox: but, did none of Colombo's parents or family win?

[00:53:23] Kyle Risi: It doesn't sound like it. And if they had then they probably wouldn't have sent this tip in.

[00:53:27] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:53:27] Should have shared the wealth

[00:53:28] Kyle Risi: Yeah, [00:53:30] spread the risk. As we know, Doug does some digging and in March, 2000, they officially launched an investigation.

[00:53:36] At the time there was another very popular game taking the country by storm. A little game show called Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?

[00:53:44] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:53:45] Kyle Risi: And so Doug Coins the Investigation, operation, final answer,

[00:53:50] Adam Cox: I see.

[00:53:50] Kyle Risi: Very good. So they are convinced that, of course it's an inside job, but remember, it doesn't make this easy because of the sheer number of people involved in making the monopoly [00:54:00] McDonald's game a reality. It's just huge.

[00:54:02] But at the same time, they also need assistance from inside McDonald's. And unless they can get access to Ronald McDonald himself, knowing who they can approach without tipping off, uncle Jerry is going to be a tough move.

[00:54:14] So eventually they take the risk and they covertly meet with a few members of the McDonald's global security division, as well as the CEO, right?

[00:54:20] Mm-hmm. All they know, it could be them, it could be anyone in there, but they're taking the risk.

[00:54:24] It's very clear straightaway that they know nothing about what's going on because what we, [00:54:30] and they're told, they're like, what? Yes.

[00:54:33] Which is exactly what a guilty person would say.

[00:54:35] Adam Cox: I know nothing about this,

[00:54:38] Kyle Risi: but no, they're very concerned about the potential PR nightmare that this is gonna cause. Even worse is that they're about to start a brand new round of McDonald's monopoly.

[00:54:48] Adam Cox: But that must be the perfect time to go. We need to do a sting operation.

[00:54:51] Kyle Risi: Exactly. But McDonald's are seriously considering pulling it.

[00:54:54] Adam Cox: But I guess the FBI are like, no, if you wanna find out who this is, you need to go ahead, but this is what we're gonna do [00:55:00] differently.

[00:55:00] Kyle Risi: Exactly. So the FBI exactly as you said are like, listen, do one more game and we promise you we will find uncle fucking Jerry. We promise.

[00:55:08] Adam Cox: And so they know he is called Uncle Jerry.

[00:55:10] Kyle Risi: Yes. They don't know who Uncle Jerry is. They think it's a weird pseudonym. They would never in a million years actually think

[00:55:16] Adam Cox: it's actually Jerry. It's actually Jerry.

[00:55:17] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

[00:55:18] Adam Cox: That's why I was just double checking. They don't know who it is. But they know there's an Uncle Jerry.

[00:55:22] Kyle Risi: So the CEO thinks it over a bit, and eventually he agrees that they'll run the game one more time.

[00:55:27] The justification was that, and this made me [00:55:30] laugh. We owe it to our customers to do the right thing, to basically run the game one more time to make millions and millions of dollars knowing that there would be no legitimate winner.

[00:55:40] So brave Adam.

[00:55:41] So brave.

[00:55:41] Adam Cox: Really good of them to do that. But they will catch the culprit, I guess they had to explain to the FBI, right?

[00:55:47] This is the process, this is what happens to the pieces, this and that. And so I guess that gives the FBI go, right, we need to look in this area, this area, whatever.

[00:55:55] Kyle Risi: Yeah, yeah. The the FBI in this story for once know what they're doing.

[00:55:59] Adam Cox: Good.

[00:55:59] Kyle Risi: So [00:56:00] 2001 McDonald's prepares to run the new Monopoly game one last time, then 28 more times until. 2014 following this. So,

[00:56:09] Adam Cox: but once they've caught the ra, of course then they can do it legitimately. They want to give back.

[00:56:13] Kyle Risi: Yes, that's true.

[00:56:14] Meanwhile, the cops start looking for connections between all of the past winners. They managed to triangulate all the winners to like one or two degrees of separation to a, a potential suspect.

[00:56:25] Mm-hmm. Of course, we know him as Uncle Jerry, but at this moment in time to the cops [00:56:30] amazement, they realize his name was Jerry.

[00:56:34] Adam Cox: Wow. So they managed to do that pretty

[00:56:35] Kyle Risi: so quickly.

[00:56:36] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:56:37] Kyle Risi: Like he wasn't even trying to hide his name. So when the game starts, Jerry steals both of the million dollar win pieces like lock work. He hands one over to Andrew Glom, who goes off to source a new winner.

[00:56:48] Meanwhile, Jerry gives the other one that he has kept for himself to a connection of his, a guy called Dwight Barker in Kentucky.

[00:56:57] I love this bit because when Jerry [00:57:00] hands him the winning piece, Dwight hands him $70,000. That's his kickback money in a McDonald's bag.

[00:57:06] Adam Cox: What? So

[00:57:07] Kyle Risi: it's very, very on brand.

[00:57:10] Very, very in keeping. Now Dwight isn't actually gonna claim the million dollars himself, and that is because Jerry had previously given his sister a $500,000 winning piece. So he obviously understands that if he claims it, it's gonna look very dodgy. Mm-hmm. So what he is gonna do is he's gonna give it to someone else to get a kickback in exchange.

[00:57:27] Adam Cox: Gotcha.

[00:57:28] Kyle Risi: So instead he sells a piece [00:57:30] to his associates in Texas for like $300,000.

[00:57:33] This is Dwight.

[00:57:34] And then after Dwight does that, a couple days later, this Texan guy calls in the win immediately. After taking that call, McDonald's calls the FBI and they're like, someone has just claimed the million dollar prize and the FBI are like, is it John Davis from Granbury, Texas?

[00:57:51] And McDonald's are like, whoa, you guys are good.

[00:57:55] Adam Cox: So they knew exactly 'cause of this, what they've been watching him.

[00:57:58] Kyle Risi: Exactly. The FBI had been [00:58:00] clocking Jerry's every move after they managed to triangulate to this unimaginative pseudonym Jerry. Mm-hmm. Who turns out to actually be called Jerry. And so they knew this entire time as the competition was unfolding.

[00:58:10] Adam Cox: That's cool.

[00:58:11] Kyle Risi: But also at this point, they now realize the scale of what he's been doing because since 1995 there hasn't been a single legitimate winner at all but also a massive chunk of all these lucky winners have all been felons.

[00:58:24] Adam Cox: That is,

[00:58:25] Kyle Risi: they're so dodgy.

[00:58:26] Adam Cox: That is So how much has McDonald's given away to these [00:58:30] dodgy people?

[00:58:30] Kyle Risi: So much money. So, well, I read that, every year. There's $472 million worth of prizes mm-hmm. That they give out But get this, only 25% of all prices are ever claimed.

[00:58:42] So even that $1 million prize Right. Even though there's two of them out there, it's not claimed very often. Mm-hmm. But every year, since 1995, at least do. there've been four people claiming the million dollar prize every year and the odds of that happening are also really low.

[00:58:57] Adam Cox: Yeah. Yeah. They must have thought we are paying out [00:59:00] way more than we used to. I

[00:59:00] Kyle Risi: don't think they're really keeping an eye on it. But I guess maybe 'cause it's been corrupt since the inception.

[00:59:06] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:59:06] Kyle Risi: Right. They don't know that that's normal.

[00:59:08] Adam Cox: Yeah, that's true.

[00:59:09] Kyle Risi: And so, because all of these lucky winners are all known felons to the cops, the goal of the FBI now is to bust them. All ideally in one go if they can.

[00:59:20] Adam Cox: How are they gonna do that?

[00:59:21] Kyle Risi: You know? 'cause you've done this before. Their initial plan is to have McDonald's host a winner's reunion party. Oh. In Las [00:59:30] Vegas.

[00:59:30] Adam Cox: And there's nothing more than what winners like to do, is to talk about their winnings.

[00:59:35] Kyle Risi: Exactly. But this is a problem because they also realized pretty quickly that when they host this winner's reunion party, it's gonna be less of a winner's reunion party and more of a. Family reunion because they're all related.

[00:59:47] Adam Cox: Oh, hi everyone. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:59:51] Kyle Risi: And so what they do is they say, okay, well no one's obviously gonna turn up. It's going to look really dodgy. People are gonna stay away. So they decide to change tactics and they [01:00:00] decide to only focus on the most recent winners.

[01:00:02] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[01:00:03] Kyle Risi: And this is the guy, Andrew Glom sells his piece too. His name is Michael Hoover. He's 56. He's bankrupt and he previously worked as a casino pit boss. So he's a felon, basically. He's a real shady guy.

[01:00:17] The FBI set up a fake commercial shoot slash pr shoot to celebrate the winner. They obviously tell him ahead of time, we're gonna come to your house, there's gonna be cameras and stuff. It's gonna be really great.

[01:00:26] The camera crew and the McDonald's execs are [01:00:30] all actually undercover cops. They show up at Michael's townhouse in Rhode Island. They knock on the door, he opens, and suddenly it's like a game show. Everyone is cheering, congratulating him. The cameras are rolling. A fake McDonald's exec, shakes his hand, and then hands him a giant check for a million dollars.

[01:00:45] And they're like, Michael, tell us the story about how you won McDonald's monopoly. And so Michael just launches into this absolutely ridiculous, detailed story.

[01:00:55] He goes. I wish I could do an Italian accident. It'd be so brilliant. It's like I was [01:01:00] asleep one day on the beach and then I woke up in a panic 'cause I was running late, but I was covered from like head to toe in sand and I was like, Jesus, I can't show up like this.

[01:01:10] And so he is like, fuck it. He rushes down to the water's edge to kind of wash it all off. But as he bends down to kind of scoop up some water, you know, as you do

[01:01:18] Adam Cox: uhhuh.

[01:01:19] Kyle Risi: His copy of People Magazine slips out from under his arm across straight into the Atlantic.

[01:01:25] And he's devastated Adam. He's like, I love People Magazine.

[01:01:28] And so he is like [01:01:30] on the way home. I couldn't stop thinking about the People Magazine and all the unfinished stories they'll never get to

[01:01:34] Adam Cox: read. Yeah.

[01:01:37] Kyle Risi: And eventually he's like, fuck it. So he pulls into a store to buy a fresh copy of People Magazine and wouldn't you know it, they're inside of my second copy is the Instant win game piece. What Luck

[01:01:48] Adam Cox: Someone had put a game piece inside a copy of Pizza Magazine.

[01:01:51] Kyle Risi: Oh, sorry. It's part of the whole Sweepstake thing. So you can also, they would also put them inside magazines and stuff. Oh, okay. Oh, that should be clear.

[01:01:57] Adam Cox: Otherwise I'd be like, what?

[01:01:58] Kyle Risi: Yeah. So you'd be like [01:02:00] paging through Then they'd have a free win. Because remember it's a sweepstake, right? Otherwise there's gambling, right?

[01:02:04] Adam Cox: Yes.

[01:02:05] Kyle Risi: And so of course while Michael is saying all of this, the cops are just there trying their best not to kind of like laugh or give away that they're all undercover, but it's so. Fucking fake.

[01:02:15] Adam Cox: It'd be so much easier just to say, yeah, I went to McDonald's, I bought a burger's, fine. Go. That's

[01:02:20] Kyle Risi: all you need to say.

[01:02:20] Yeah. Like you don't need to know about the my new details. Right.

[01:02:22] Adam Cox: I needed to know what happened to those people.

[01:02:24] Kyle Risi: I don't know. So the FBI, they are satisfied at this point that they have enough information to start making arrests.

[01:02:29] Adam Cox: [01:02:30] Mm-hmm.

[01:02:30] Kyle Risi: But they don't just want Jerry, they want everyone involved, including all of the fake winners.

[01:02:34] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[01:02:35] Kyle Risi: But they can't just arrest them all one by one because as the word spread, the word would get round. Sure. And they would all make a run for it.

[01:02:41] Adam Cox: Especially as they're all related.

[01:02:42] Kyle Risi: Exactly. So the FBI, they orchestrate this massive coordinated operation across the USA, hitting literally everyone at the same time.

[01:02:49] Mm-hmm. They then spend a week syncing up all the case information with all the different arresting officers across the country which details exactly who to grab, where, when the dates, the times, the [01:03:00] lot, it's all. Adam being coordinated by fax.

[01:03:04] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[01:03:05] Kyle Risi: There are hundreds of facts pinging all over the place to different police departments the day before the rests. They've got everything in order. Instead of sending a fax to the Greenville FBI office, someone sends the fax accidentally to the Greenville News Station.

[01:03:21] Adam Cox: Oh.

[01:03:22] Kyle Risi: So effectively, just before they go to arrest, the people involved in this, they've basically handed every piece of information [01:03:30] on the case to a bunch of journalists.

[01:03:32] Adam Cox: No. Are they gonna publish it or are they gonna do the right thing?

[01:03:36] Kyle Risi: Well, the damage is minimal because I guess that they do do the right thing and they hold. With the agreement that as soon as they made the arrest, we can go live with these stories.

[01:03:46] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[01:03:46] Kyle Risi: And so the following morning, just before dawn, across the country in classic FBI style, they start raiding people's homes first. They, of course, NAB Uncle Sherry, who they smashed down his door. They drag him out in handcuffs in front of all of his neighbors. They're all mortified. He is [01:04:00] mortified. They set his bail to $1 million, which unfortunately didn't give him a get outta jail card.

[01:04:06] They also then arrest everyone else involved, including Dwight Michael Hoover, of course, Andrew glm. By the end of that morning, the FBI have arrested a total of 50 people across the United States. Oh. Way spanning all the way back to 1989,

[01:04:20] Adam Cox: including the Percher.

[01:04:21] Kyle Risi: I dunno. I dunno if they arrested him.

[01:04:23] Adam Cox: Mm.

[01:04:24] Kyle Risi: Got away with it must have been right.

[01:04:25] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[01:04:25] They would've known if they looked at it back. Although I guess he's not, a villain. So perhaps it wasn't [01:04:30] that obvious that he was involved

[01:04:31] Kyle Risi: and he did claim one of the prizes. Remember it was supposed to be his sister. So I wouldn't be surprised that the butcher did get arrested

[01:04:35] Adam Cox: and like these people. They've spent that money I suspect in some way or another because they're gonna

[01:04:40] Kyle Risi: have pay back.

[01:04:41] Adam Cox: Yeah,

[01:04:41] Kyle Risi: of course. After the arrest, the journalists are given the go ahead to kinda run with a story. The attorney general at the time makes a public statement. 'cause the story is just so massive where he goes to television and it tells the press those involved in this type of corruption will find that breaking the law is [01:05:00] no game.

[01:05:03] Adam Cox: But then the thing is like all these people that have bought McDonald's for the monopoly money or whatever, get this game. It's did McDonald's get sued? ' cause people are like, oh, like we never

[01:05:12] Kyle Risi: lawsuit. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:05:13] Adam Cox: We never stood a chance in winning. I know. They didn't

[01:05:15] Kyle Risi: know.

[01:05:15] Honestly. I don't think so.

[01:05:16] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[01:05:17] Kyle Risi: They must have done, someone must have tried.

[01:05:19] Adam Cox: Yeah. It's

[01:05:19] Kyle Risi: America.

[01:05:20] Adam Cox: I would've tried.

[01:05:21] Kyle Risi: So basically Jerry is now looking at 45 years behind bars.

[01:05:25] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[01:05:25] Kyle Risi: Which he sort of knew could be the case if he got busted. This is [01:05:30] why obviously the first million dollar prize winner was St. Jude, right?

[01:05:33] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[01:05:33] Kyle Risi: He was hoping that a jury would see him as this kinda Robin Hood kind of figure and maybe be lenient with him.

[01:05:40] But the cops are like, sure, you help the kids. But Jerry, you also helped a hell of a lot of convicted criminals get rich. And so they say you can take the risk and use that as a defense, but considering the number of crooks that you've enriched, I don't think a jury is going to look on you very kindly.

[01:05:58] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[01:05:58] Kyle Risi: And [01:06:00] so. They give him a deal and say, you could plead guilty and we will ensure that your maximum sentence is just 15 years. And so it's a no-brainer. He decides to plead guilty. Of course, McDonald's, CEO, Jack Greenberg, he tries to get ahead of view, inevitable negative PR that's coming his way.

[01:06:16] Sure. He goes on television, acknowledges the blunder says that they have terminated their relationship with Simon Marketing Adam. That basically means the end of them.

[01:06:26] Adam Cox: Well you said 95% of their revenue is from McDonald's.

[01:06:28] Kyle Risi: Yeah, Which also [01:06:30] means hundreds of people lose their job as well.

[01:06:32] So that's all down to Jerry.

[01:06:34] Basically, out of the 50 people they arrested, they are pretty much all convicted of charges on mail, fraud and conspiracy. Mm-hmm. Most receive only probation, but they are all ordered to pay back all of the prize money.

[01:06:47] Four of the winners. Do manage though to get their convictions overturned on appeal. Apparently on an account that they believed that they were duped into taking the game pieces. It made sense when I was kind of reading it, but then I was like, [01:07:00]

[01:07:00] Adam Cox: how were they duped? Like, oh, you give me, yeah. How

[01:07:03] Kyle Risi: It's because they knew that Jerry worked for McDonald's and they thought it was like through McDonald's officially. And yeah, it was, it's weird.

[01:07:10] Adam Cox: I'm going to give you a piece of a game that you didn't get legitimately.

[01:07:14] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Anyway, they managed to argue that and they get off.

[01:07:17] Adam Cox: Wow.

[01:07:18] Kyle Risi: But in total, over 12 years, it's estimated that Jerry stole more than 60 winning game pieces, totaling $24 million in prizes,

[01:07:28] Adam Cox: and he must have got a few million [01:07:30] from that easily.

[01:07:30] Kyle Risi: Yeah, and he does try to highlight in court his little defense loophole with St. Jude's. But again, it's just completely dwarfed by the fact that he enriched all these drugs smugglers and mob bosses.

[01:07:42] So yeah,

[01:07:42] Adam Cox: that was your first one. You then did 59 more.

[01:07:44] Kyle Risi: Exactly. In the end, he is ordered to pay back $12.5 million in restitution. And he's sentenced to just three years in prison.

[01:07:52] Adam Cox: Yeah, so he is kind of lucky.

[01:07:54] Kyle Risi: And Adam, that is a story of the McDonald's monopoly heist.

[01:07:57] You might even say, Adam, he didn't [01:08:00] pass go.

[01:08:02] Adam Cox: Wow. It's weird to think almost feels made up and the fact they got away, imagine when that news broke. People just like, what this is must be like crazy.

[01:08:11] Kyle Risi: Actually, a lot of people haven't actually heard this story. And the reason for that is because the FBI's court case of this story, do you know what I'm gonna say?

[01:08:19] Adam Cox: No.

[01:08:19] Kyle Risi: It began on the 10th of September, 2001.

[01:08:23] Adam Cox: Oh my. Are you serious?

[01:08:25] Kyle Risi: Why does that keep happening? That is the fourth time I think what we had, the [01:08:30] Montserrat Florence.

[01:08:30] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[01:08:31] Kyle Risi: The Millionaire Coughing scandal, Uhhuh, uh, the eBay stalking scandal, Uhhuh, and now the McDonald's Monopoly game all kind of got swallowed up by that void that was created by the events of nine 11. It's just wild.

[01:08:45] Adam Cox: That is, isn't it? And I'm sure there's more as well.

[01:08:48] Kyle Risi: Well, that we've done.

[01:08:48] Adam Cox: Yeah, I'm sure

[01:08:49] Kyle Risi: Jack the Ripper.

[01:08:50] Adam Cox: I dunno if that was, um, but yeah, I just, um, and also this poor Jerry, I say poor Jerry, like he thought he was a bit [01:09:00] of a loser. He wanted to try and impress his family and now he just brought them all down and they've all got criminal records.

[01:09:05] Kyle Risi: That's true.

[01:09:05] Adam Cox: And paying back money. So yeah. Still a bit of a loser.

[01:09:08] Kyle Risi: Still a yes. What is lovely though is that McDonald's, they do agree to honor the prize money that Jerry gave to St. Jude's Children's Hospital.

[01:09:16] And it's lovely because it doesn't honestly seem like it was a PR move in any way. Like they just was like, they didn't draw attention to the fact that they did this. It was just quietly done. And I found that as a little footnote in The Guardian and I was like, oh, I'm [01:09:30] surprised that wasn't a bigger thing.

[01:09:30] I'm surprised that wasn't more prominent information.

[01:09:32] Adam Cox: I guess they don't wanna be seen as oh look, we'll allow this one to sit by. They just want to, I think just let it, it's a good deed.

[01:09:40] Kyle Risi: But they did take up the opportunity to capitalize on it when St. Jude's first cleaned the prize. They were like this good pr, but at the court case, they didn't make a big song and dance about letting them keep the money.

[01:09:52] Adam Cox: No, I think it would just looked a bit bad. Probably put a bit of bad taste, I think, if it was miles.

[01:09:56] Kyle Risi: Sure. Possibly I like that little detail. But yeah, that is the [01:10:00] story of the McDonald's monopoly heist, essentially. That's what it is. A heist.

[01:10:03] Adam Cox: Yeah. I mean, I've never won it, to be honest. So now I know why, why because of Jerry.

[01:10:09] Kyle Risi: I don't think it was, there was a scam in game. No, I'm blaming

[01:10:11] Adam Cox: Jerry.

[01:10:12] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Anyway, thanks for doing some, uh, membership arms.

[01:10:16] Adam Cox: Let's do it.

[01:10:17] Kyle Risi: So, as you guys all know by now, HR have been hard to work assigning the ideal job roles to all of our certified freaks and big top tier members.

[01:10:25] Adam Cox: But the only problem is, while we know your job title, we don't actually know what your job [01:10:30] description entails.

[01:10:31] Kyle Risi: And so when you hear your name, please remember to take notes of your job title, and then using the link in the show notes, you have an opportunity to reflect and then submit your official job description to hr. We want to know what your duties involve, who you report to, and any major incidents that may have happened under your watch.

[01:10:52] Adam Cox: So we'll read some of the best job descriptions on a future episode,

[01:10:56] Kyle Risi: This week we'd like to give a very big welcome to Gerard [01:11:00] Skelly, our Transnational Juggling Payload Examiner (Night Shift).

[01:11:04] Adam Cox: Who does the day shift? Uh, Giles Brocking, our Lead Investigator of Suspiciously Squeaky Circus Benches.

[01:11:14] Kyle Risi: Love that one. Suspiciously, suspiciously, squeaky Circus benches. Amazing. Uh, we got, uh, Ellen Holiday, Our Balloon Knot Delay-Time Analyst

[01:11:25] Adam Cox: okay. Ida Marie Tysse our Interim [01:11:30] Keeper of Misplaced Circus Spoons.

[01:11:32] Kyle Risi: That, damn, there's damn teaspoons

[01:11:34] Adam Cox: they go missing.

[01:11:35] Kyle Risi: Jessica Fox, our Compliance Officer for Acrobat Confidence Inflation.

[01:11:39] Adam Cox: Okay, and then Dara Sanders, our Incident Lead for Premature Applause Outbreaks. What? What's that? You clapped too soon. Get out.

[01:11:49] Kyle Risi: Uh, and this week's best job description is from Isla from Edinburgh, who is our Chief Engineer for Maximisation of Monkey Nut Unshelling Production.

[01:11:59] Isla [01:12:00] says she's responsible for streamlining the process of un shelling peanuts for the various animals that inhabit the compendium circus.

[01:12:08] Adam Cox: She also says that ensuring the maximum volume of nut by speed of shelling process is a difficult equation that varies based on the quality of the peanuts she is presented with.

[01:12:18] So it's a very hands-on job.

[01:12:20] Kyle Risi: Very nice.

[01:12:21] Adam Cox: Mm.

[01:12:21] Kyle Risi: So guys, take note of that. That's the kind of detail that we want. Let us know what your duties involve, who you report to, any challenges that you might face. [01:12:30] And the best ones we'll read on a future episode. Remember, the link is in the show notes.

[01:12:34] And if you haven't received your job title, then don't panic. Just send us a DM and I will get one to you. Every single member of our Patreon has one.

[01:12:44] Adam Cox: So shall we run the outro?

[01:12:46] Kyle Risi: I think so. I think I'm ready to, uh, piss off. Okay guys, that brings us to the end of another fascinating foray into the compendium and assembly of fascinating things. We really hope you enjoyed the ride as much as we did,

[01:12:59] Adam Cox: and if [01:13:00] today's episode has sparked your curiosity, then please do us a favor and follow us on your favorite podcast app. It truly makes a world of difference and helps more people like you discover the show.

[01:13:09] Kyle Risi: And for our dedicated freaks out there, don't forget, the next week's episode is already waiting for you on a Patreon, and as always, it's completely free to access.

[01:13:19] Adam Cox: And if you want even more, then join our certified Freaks tier to unlock the entire archive. You can delve into exclusive content, get a sneak peek of what's coming next. We'd love for you to be part of our growing [01:13:30] community.

[01:13:30] Kyle Risi: We drop new episodes every Tuesday and until then, remember, you don't need luck to win Monopoly, just access to the banker.

[01:13:37] Adam Cox: See you next week.

[01:13:38] Kyle Risi: See you next time. [01:14:00]