Leaflets for “Pick Your Prize Monopoly” and “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” described McDonald’s games played in 14 countries. But in the last 12 months his desk had filled with fast food paraphernalia.
Sandy-haired and highly-organized, Dent was a 13-year veteran of the Bureau, who spent his days investigating public corruption and bank fraud. Monopoly quickly became the company’s most lucrative marketing device since the Happy Meal.Īt the FBI’s Jacksonville Field Office in Florida, Special Agent Richard Dent added the Hoover videotape to his growing pile of evidence.
“Don’t go to jail! Go to McDonald’s and play Monopoly for real!” cried Rich Uncle Pennybags, the game’s mustachioed mascot, on TV commercials that sent customers flocking to buy more food. Armed robbers even held up restaurants demanding Monopoly tickets. Just like the Monopoly board game, which was invented as a warning about the destructive nature of greed, players traded game pieces to win, or outbid each other on eBay. There were two ways to win the Monopoly grand prize: find the “Instant Win” game piece like Hoover, or match Park Place with the elusive Boardwalk to choose between a heavily-taxed lump sum or $50,000 checks every year for 20 years. Like winning the Powerball, the odds of Hoover’s win were 1 in 250 million. But Hoover, a casino pit boss who had recently filed for bankruptcy, claimed he’d won the grand prize–$1 million dollars. By completing groups of properties like Baltic and Mediterranean Avenues, players won cash or a Sega Game Gear, while “Instant Win” game pieces scored a free Filet-O-Fish or a Jamaican vacation.
Since 1987, McDonald’s customers had feverishly collected Monopoly game pieces attached to drink cups, french fry packets and advertising inserts in magazines. The 56-year-old bachelor had called a McDonald’s hotline to say he’d won their Monopoly competition. They carried their cameras and a giant cashier’s check to a row of townhouses, and knocked on the door of Michael Hoover. On August 3, 2001, a McDonald’s film crew arrived in the bustling beach town of Westerly, Rhode Island.