[robmcm]

There also seems to be zero analysis of the winners. Simple analytics would have raised concerns early on.

I guess the company just didn’t care, as long as someone won and the marketing worked.

[40four]

I think McDonald's could have cared less. They made & continue to make $$$ hand over fist with these promotions. The marketing for sure worked, whether anyone won or not. I used to play these games & I never remember hearing about any real winners. Didn't keep me from the dream of pulling one of those instant winners. People get excited for games of chance and it drives large amounts of traffic into stores.

McDonald's counts those millions good as gone when they start the promotion, but it's worth it since they assuredly get a huge return on the investment. They assumed Simon marketing was doing their job, and we shouldn't be surprised they didn't care to look analyze the integrity of the game. They were selling truckloads of Big Macs & Mcnuggets and that all that really matters to them.

Any-who... great writing, and interesting look into to a "game" I'm sure most of us have a connection to. Pretty amazing it was hijacked by a few people for so long. Really enjoyed this read!

[ballenf]

There is some irony in the criminals paying restitution to the company who was making so much money from the game to be incentivized to turn a blind eye.

Running the last game that was known ahead of time to be rigged seems indefensible. The article doesn’t challenge the position that catching the crooks is a good reason to defraud more people.

[konschubert]

Do you mean could or couldn't ?

[riazrizvi]

They cared about the outcome enough to prevent Canadians from winning.

[Latteland]

Finally, a us multinational who recognized the danger of Canada. So actually, the article didn't explain why we wanted to cut them out. It just was. I thought they suggested it was the marketing company, not mackers, but it wasn't specified.