15 Of McDonald's Biggest Contests And Games To Date

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Every single year, McDonald's welcomes roughly 90% of the U.S. population through its Golden Arches. While most will be eyeing one of the fast food conglomerate's many beloved menu items (including our personal favorite, the Deluxe bacon and egg biscuit), there's another thing that pulls people through McDonald's doors: The chance of winning a prize.

Over the years, the fast food giant has run many different contests and games, offering customers the chance to try and win millions of dollars in cash. Of course, most people don't actually win any money, but the opportunity to bag some free food (the usual consolation prize) is also pretty appealing.

Now, not everything has smooth sailing in McDonald's land (just look at all the lawsuits McDonald's dealt with over the years), and its many contests are no exception. This list contains plenty of instances with free food won, as well as a few cash prizes. But there's also failed promises, a bittersweet success story, and even some intervention from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Let's dive into McDonald's history, and take a look at some of the biggest contests in its history.

Since it first launched in 1987, McDonald's Monopoly has had a rocky ride. On the one hand, the game — which involves peeling off stickers from McDonald's packaging to reveal a Monopoly "piece" and a prize — has been a tremendous success for the chain. People love McDonald's food anyway, and with a chance of winning a prize (which can range from free fries to huge sums of cash)? Customers are more incentivized to grab a Big Mac.

Sales always jump when McDonald's Monopoly is in play. It is, without a doubt, one of the biggest games the fast food chain has in its arsenal: Over the years, it has given out more than $1 billion in prizes. But things haven't always gone to plan. In the 1990s, McDonald's Monopoly was at the center of a huge scam.

Jerome Jacobson, who worked for the marketing company that helped launch McDonald's Monopoly, had abused his position as overseer of the game. In short, he had been handing out winning game pieces to those close to him in exchange for a cut of the prize money. The FBI uncovered his scheme in the early 2000s, after Jacobson had defrauded McDonald's out of millions.

The Monopoly promotion in the 1980s wasn't the first time that McDonald's handed out prizes. Back in 1968, the fast food chain launched a promotion that, it claimed, included $500,000 worth of sweepstake prizes. This time, the coupons were printed in Reader's Digest travel section, and customers would bring them into their local McDonald's restaurant in the hope of winning a prize.

According to the chain at the time, these prizes included things like a brand new Ford Country Squire wagon, color televisions, and mini electric train sets. But just like in the 1990s, the $500,000 sweepstakes became embroiled in controversy. In 1970, the fast food chain was accused by the Federal Trade Commission of only giving out $13,000 worth of prizes, instead of the promised $500,000 worth. In 1973, though, McDonald's was absolved of the complaint. It turns out the chain had simply not reallocated prizes if a winning ticket was not claimed. The chain did agree to give out the unclaimed prizes in future competitions, though.

In 1980, seven years before anyone had a chance to play McDonald's Monopoly, there was the $6 million Winning Combination Game. It was one of the biggest competitions the fast food chain had ever run, with more than 10 million prizes up for grabs.

To play, all customers had to do was pick up a card and scratch off the image of a combination safe on the front to reveal a number. If that number matched the Winning Combination Number displayed inside the restaurant, then the customer had a chance of winning a prize. For most, the prize would involve some free food or a free Coca-Cola (and let's be honest: Coke from McDonald's always tastes better than other places). But for a lucky few, there was a chance of winning some serious cash.

Additionally, scratching off the silver safe wasn't the only way to win. The card also had three small scratch-off silver circles at the bottom, and if all three matched, you could win food. There was also a silver square, which could be scratched off to reveal two letters. If you collected all the letters (spelling out "winning combination") you could win $2,500. Of course, people who remember playing the game say it was virtually impossible to find the "AT" letters required.

In 1978, McDonald's customers had Menu Money Mania, with a chance of winning a prize in a participating restaurant. To do so, customers had to open the game piece and tear off a stamp, which would then be placed in their very own Menu Money Mania stamp book. The stamp book was split into yellow and blue sections — yellow for breakfast items like the classic Egg McMuffin (invented by Herb Peterson), and blue for lunch and dinner items — and each operated the same way. If you completed the images in the book with your stamps, you'd have a chance of winning either a cash prize or some food.

The odds were low of winning a big prize, of course, but it wasn't impossible. Plus, in 1980, McDonald's brought back Menu Money Mania (only this time it was just called Menu Mania) with even bigger prizes. One man from Orlando, Florida managed to win $25,000 on Menu Mania, with a local newspaper report from the time revealing his chances of winning the prize were 26 million-to-one.

In 1979, McDonald's launched the $1,000,000 Diamond Hunt competition. Again, similar to the previous year's Menu Money Mania, the Diamond Hunt involved getting a booklet from your local McDonald's, then collecting stamps every time you visited the chain. While the overall value of the contest was $1 million, the biggest prize available to each individual customer was $50,000 in cash or diamonds.

Like always, the odds were much higher of winning food than cash. In fact, for every visit, there was a one-in-17 chance of winning something like a Big Mac, fries, or a drink. For the biggest prize — the $50,000 jackpot — there was a one-in-over-82 million chance per visit of winning. And while the odds were low, some people still became obsessed.

In Belleville, Illinois, on the last day of the competition, one man issued a desperate plea via the local paper for people to help him win a prize. He was asking for the stamps he needed to finish his booklet, claiming that he had been visiting his local McDonald's four times a week to try and increase his chances.

Flexi-discs used to be a pretty popular fast food giveaway. Jack in the Box and Burger King, for example, both had flexi-disc giveaways in the 1970s and 1980s. In the late '80s, McDonald's decided to take the flexi-disc trend to the next level. The fast food giant ran a huge promotion, releasing 80 million flexi-discs in one go.

On the back of the packaging for each disc were coupons for free food and cash prizes. But the biggest prize was in the disc itself. When you played it, you'd hear a teacher singing his class the McDonald's Menu Song, which was basically (as you might have guessed) the entire McDonald's Menu in song form. On most of the recordings, the class fails to sing back the Menu Song all the way through. But on one record, the class gets it right, and if you got that record? You'd win $1 million in cash.

In a remarkable story, a young boy from a low-income family in Galax, Virginia found the winning record in a stack of newspapers near his home. His mom claimed the prize and used it to open her own store, but sadly, the business didn't work out, with the money either stolen or squandered. Interestingly, the young boy, named Scotty Landreth, ended up later taking a job at McDonald's to get by.

If there's a single menu item that McDonald's is known for above anything else, it's probably the Big Mac. The burger was invented in the 1960s, and has remained one of its most popular food options ever since. In the 1980s, McDonald's decided to capitalize on the burger's success by launching the Build a Big Mac game, which boasted $10,000,000 worth of prizes in total.

Just like many of its other competitions around this time, the Build a Big Mac game started with a booklet. Inside, there was a large picture of a Big Mac split into sections. The idea was that you could collect stamps with your orders, stick them to the image, and win prizes for each section you completed. Next to the Big Mac, there were also two columns of "Instant Winners." If you got a stamp in this section, you could win things like a portion of fries, a fountain drink, or even $100,000 straight away — without having to fill in the Big Mac with stamps.

Of course, American customers love the Big Mac, but what's a burger without fries? In 2023, McDonald's sold more than 255 billion individual fries, after all — that's how much they're loved. Of course, the fast food chain's fries have been adored for decades, which is why McDonald's teamed up with Playskool's Mr. Potato Head to launch its Fries Surprise game in 1990.

Unlike with other McDonald's games, everyone who ordered a large or medium fries (or breakfast hash browns) from the chain was guaranteed a prize this time. To claim it, you just peeled off the sticker from the fries, and handed it in at the counter. Most people won savings on food, of course, but a lucky few bagged trips to Hawaii and cash.

After the contest's initial launch, McDonald's made sure people knew they could actually win big prizes by playing the game. It aired a commercial stating that $25 million worth of prizes had already been won, and listed off the names of winners, including a man who'd won $10,000 in cash.

In 1990, everyone was flocking to the movies to watch "Dick Tracy" with Al Pacino and Warren Beatty. McDonald's isn't one to miss out on a money-making opportunity, so while the movie was in theaters, it ran its own Dick Tracy Crimestopper Game.

To play, customers collected scratch cards with two parts. In the first part, they would be presented with a scene, like a bank robber stealing a car. They would then try to find the car by scratching off the silver boxes next to different colored cards. If they found the car, they could win a prize, but if they got the words "game over," they had to move to part two. The second part of the scratch card revealed a mug shot. If the mug shot matched the one in the McDonald's restaurant, again, they could win a prize.

The total prizes handed out in the game were worth $40,000,000. But, of course, this amount wasn't available to one single winner. That said, customers could win up to $1,000,000 if they were super lucky.

Back in 2000, when "Dinosaur" was in theaters, McDonald's launched a dino-themed contest. The game was called Hatch, Match, & Win, and it involved collecting stamps with different body parts of dinosaurs. If you got enough to create a whole dinosaur, you won a prize (as always, instant prize stamps were also available). But what was an appropriate prize in 2000? Britney Spears concert tickets, of course, with a chance to meet the pop icon backstage.

Other prizes up for grabs in the game included a $1,000 Sketchers shopping spree, a vacation, and even a diamond worth $25,000 (hopefully someone called up the man from Belleville, Illinois). The big prize, though, was $1 million in cash. As always, you'd have to be incredibly lucky to score this, as there were only two winning stamps out of more than 452 million game pieces. Still, you had to be in it to win it. There were also 5,000 chances to win an "Oops! ... I Did It Again" CD — not a bad consolation prize if you ask us.

In the 1980s, millions of people were leaving the country in search of a relaxing vacation abroad, and passport applications surged. McDonald's has never been one to miss an opportunity to cash in on a trend, so in the early 1980s, it launched the new $15 million You Deserve a Break Today Passport contest.

Similar to other games from the fast food chain, the game (promoted by a commercial with Frank Nelson) involved collecting a booklet from your local McDonald's, then filling it with stamps. For most people, collecting the stamps and completing a travel-themed image would result in winning free food. In fact, there were more than 46 million food prizes to be won. But for some, the collection or an instant win stamp would get them something arguably much more exciting: A vacation.

The vacations on offer included trips to Brazil, Australia, the Bahamas, Hawaii, and Canada. Alternatively, if you didn't want to travel, you could opt for cash instead. The highest cash prize (with only two opportunities to win in the entire game) was $300,000.

Americans weren't just dreaming of international vacations in the 1980s; many were also looking slightly closer to home, to amusement parks like Disneyland in California. So when the popular theme park opened its new exciting ride, Splash Mountain, in 1989, it was the perfect opportunity for a McDonald's collaboration. The fast food chain launched its $75 million Scrabble Game this year, and it was simple: Customers collected the boards, and then collected game stamps.

Instead of building images like in previous competitions, they instead used the pieces to spell out words. Different words correlated to different prizes. Got "Bigmac?" You could win you a whopping $1 million. Got "Disney?" Of course, that was the highly sought after trip to Disneyland. The Scrabble sheet was filled with prizes, including Instant Winner prizes of cash and, as always, food and soda. In this case, if you were one of the two people to win the $1 million grand prize, you would have this given to you over a 20-year period (roughly $50,000 per year).

In 1999, British hit game show "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" landed in the U.S. for the first time. It was a very simple format: Contestants would sit in a chair opposite host Regis Philbin and answer questions that were worth prize money. The final question was worth $1 million, of course, and in 2001, McDonald's teamed up with the show to run its own version of the game for its customers.

People participated by answering a question on the front of their French fry cardboard holder. They would scratch off the correct answer, and if they answered correctly, they could select a prize. Just like in the real game show, the maximum was $1 million (although unlike in the game show, winners would receive this over the course of two decades).

Unfortunately for McDonald's, this particular game wasn't smooth sailing, as it was also caught up in Jerome Jacobson's scam. As with the Monopoly game, Jacobson ensured the best game pieces were given to friends and family, and then pocket some of their cash prizes. Eventually, he was sentenced to more than three years in prison for his crimes.

In 1990, most Americans had at least one television in their home, which they would watch for, on average, dozens of hours every week. NBC wanted most of those hours, so it teamed up with McDonald's on a new promotion.

For this game, customers would go to McDonald's and get a McMillions on NBC ticket stub with a number (which they would scratch off to reveal, of course). Then, they'd tune into NBC at the time stated on the ticket, and see if their number was called out. If it was? Well, then it was prize time, with the maximum amount available to win being $1 million.

If you scratched off your ticket and didn't find a number, you'd most likely find that you'd won the Instant Winner prize of $1 instead. In this instance, you could take your ticket to the manager of the restaurant to claim your prize.

People in the 1980s were not short of McDonald's games and contests. In this decade, the fast food giant also launched its Silver Mine game, which, much like previous contests, involved collecting a Silver Mine booklet, and then collecting stamps and matching them to the images inside.

Like always, the game was advertised with the total amount in prizes, which was $5 million in this case. In other words, this amount wasn't actually available for customers to win. Instead, they could win instant prizes for free food items, or up to $50,000 in cash or silver.

The game was a follow-up to a very similar contest that ran in the late 1970s, called Gold Rush. Only in that McDonald's promotion — which was worth $400,000 — the highest prize available to customers was $25,000 (which they could collect in cash or gold).