OAK BROOK, ILL., October 4—Better prizes. Bigger numbers. That’s the theme of this year’s Monopoly Best Chance Game 3.0—McDonald’s biggest promotion to date.

October 4 through October 31 (or while supplies last) on http://www.PlayatMcD.com, McDonald’s will give away an unprecedented $200 million in total available winnings in cash, electronics, food, and more. For the third straight year, McDonald’s is partnering with Best Buy to offer Monopoly players the opportunity to win millions in prizes, including Best Buy Bucks and a variety of great quality prizes.
“There is no other promotion like Monopoly Best Chance Game 3.0,” says Bill Lamar, chief marketing officer for McDonald’s USA. “We’re giving away one million dollars, a chance to be in an upcoming Hollywood movie, a complete home electronics makeover and lots more. We’re going big because we want to engage our valued customers with fun, new promotions that are in tune with their changing needs.”
Guests visiting participating McDonald’s restaurants have four ways to play and possibly win: Best Buy Bucks, Collect & Win, Instant Win, and Online. Top prizes include:
$1 million; 100 million Reward Zone® Program Points and membership from Best
Buy; a Dodge Viper with Alpine® audio and Pioneer video equipment; a chance to be in an upcoming Buena Vista movie and attend a private screening; a home electronic makeover featuring LG appliances and JVC electronics; a Sony prize package including a PlayStationPortable and a
PlayStation 2 System; and an iPod with 1,000 downloads from iTunes.

In addition to the traditional in-store Collect & Win and Instant Win methods of play, Monopoly 3.0 is bringing the online game back with a new Collect & Win feature.
Introduced in 2004, the online component of Monopoly was the biggest online giveaway in history, and this year’s online game is looking to repeat that success. In 2005, McDonald’s will give away prizes on http://www.PlayatMcD.com through its Collect & Win feature. Each game piece contains a code that can be entered online. Players can select a Monopoly token and role the dice on the electronic game board for a chance to collect properties and win many of the same prizes available in-store, including downloads, etc. Also new this year, Monopoly 3.0’s online game will give away a prizes every hour throughout the entire promotion.

Online players also will have the opportunity to win more than 1 million prizes that include downloadable cell phone ringtones, digital photo prints, downloadable mobile phone games, or song downloads from iTunes. Players can play each day at http://playatmcd.com with a limit of 10 codes per day per person.

In addition, McDonald’s has partnered with one of the fastest growing online social networking sites for young adults, MySpace.com. When users access the http://www.myspace.com/mcdmonopoly page they will be greeted with the opportunity to remix Latin funk band Kinky’s “I Say Hey” song, that’s featured in the television commercials and make it their own.
“After a successful Monopoly Best Chance Game 2.0, we are excited to once again align these strong, national brands,” says Mike Linton, chief marketing officer at Best Buy. “This promotion allows us to connect with McDonald’s young, technology-minded customers.”