Don’t Hate the Player, Hate the Game - How Jerome "Uncle Jerry" Jacobson McScammed $24 Million from McDonald's Monopoly

Scam City

Question of the scam: We all have a friend who seems to know someone who knows someone. So imagine that your homegirl presents you the opportunity to “win” a contest for a million dollars. You have to decide three things: do you do it, yes or no?

Do you take your money upfront in a lump sum or in small payments of $50,000/yr for 20 years? Finally, do you pay the $50,000 finders fee she’s demanding to her and all of the “someones” involved upfront or ask that you have a year to pay them back?

Don’t Hate the Player, Hate the Game - How Jerome "Uncle Jerry" Jacobson McScammed $24 Million from McDonald's Monopoly

It all began in 1987 with a little nationwide Monopoly game McDonald's cooked up, which saw customers feverishly collecting game pieces attached to drink cups, french fry packets, magazine ads and...selling on Bay. The game promised lavish vacation, cars, and the chance to win $1 million, but no one ever actually won anything more than a double serving of fries, and that's because the game was rigged for 12 years by a former cop named Jerome "Uncle Jerry" Jacobson. In deep dive published by The Daily Beast (most recently optioned to be the blueprint for an upcoming film chronicling the grift a la Hustlers) Uncle Jerry had insider access to the pieces while working as director of security for Simon Marketing, the company in charge of producing the game pieces. What started as just stealing one small fry piece, turned into a network of scamming with accomplices that included the mob, psychics, ex-cons, drug dealers, strip club owners, housewives, and a Mormon family, all guilty for falsely claiming more than $24 million in cash and prizes.

Digressions include Titanic, The Wolf of Wall Street, Black mothers asking about your "McDonald's money," and why this grift could've only been executed by a white man.

Each episode Cass and Taylor rate the scam! Here's this week's results.

OVERALL RESULTS

Taylor: 2.6

Cass: 3

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