Ridiculous gimmicky Monopoly

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storewanderer
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Re: Ridiculous gimmicky Monopoly

Post by storewanderer »

Romr123 wrote: March 10th, 2021, 8:03 pm It was wild seeing how many tickets the checker had in the till---the register tallies the total which need to go to the customer...first time I was in the checker actually circled the total on the receipt (kinda like they do cash back at Costco).
Interesting, in NorCal division they just have tickets in boxes sitting on top of the checkstands. The only time I've seen the cashiers take the tickets out of the till is at the perimeter like the deli register.
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Re: Ridiculous gimmicky Monopoly

Post by Romr123 »

I'll bet that it's quite popular---gamification and lottery...almost like going to the casino!
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Re: Ridiculous gimmicky Monopoly

Post by storewanderer »

Romr123 wrote: March 10th, 2021, 10:37 pm I'll bet that it's quite popular---gamification and lottery...almost like going to the casino!
They actually can't run the game in Florida due to the laws there surrounding this sort of thing being too close to "gaming."

Well, couldn't when they had the stores open in FL.
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Re: Ridiculous gimmicky Monopoly

Post by pseudo3d »

Romr123 wrote: March 10th, 2021, 1:57 pm Probably some sort of "stop loss" that they need to purchase---it's an "every card can win; every card can lose" type situation. The number for Albertsons' is 230 million dollars...so proportionally about right.
Like with McDonald's Monopoly (which notoriously had the top prizes stolen for years as explained by the McMillions docuseries), the actual collect-and-win winning pieces are all physically rare. I remember when I worked at Randalls five years ago, I got to do the employee version of the game, got a huge stack of tickets, and missed every color by the "rare ticket". Other businesses do the same thing, like Raising Cane's has five letters to spell CANES for $100,000 but only one letter is rare, the rest are commonplace.

It's in the company's best interest to give the cards out to everyone, these things also bet against people winning by the proportion of people that don't care and never redeem the winning ticket.
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Re: Ridiculous gimmicky Monopoly

Post by storewanderer »

This year they have completely eliminated the "collect and win" element of the game. You enter the game code from each non-coupon or free item (the coupons or free items have to be entered into the game and then load to your club card to redeem, the store no longer scans the game pieces like a coupon for redemption) game piece and it will either win or lose after you go through a little game:
1. Match 3 cards
2. If 1 is a loss- pick the red or blue chance card for tokens

They eliminated "collect and win" this year. Also the game only runs for 2 months this year; previously it ran for closer to 3 months (usually a week or two longer as stores still had pieces to distribute).
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Re: Ridiculous gimmicky Monopoly

Post by storewanderer »

I'm trying to figure out is a free bottle of water one of their only prizes?

If this keeps up I may have enough to get 24 free bottles.
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Re: Ridiculous gimmicky Monopoly

Post by Romr123 »

I did get an instant nail clipper coupon...also an instant coupon for a pint of vinegar.
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Re: Ridiculous gimmicky Monopoly

Post by CalItalian »

storewanderer wrote: March 24th, 2021, 11:42 pm I'm trying to figure out is a free bottle of water one of their only prizes?

If this keeps up I may have enough to get 24 free bottles.
I'm with ya on that water.
But I have won many prizes - from O Organics canned tomatoes to French bread to Signature Select olive oil to nail clippers (at least 35 free items - 15 just in water bottles) and a few $1 off Just For U credit. Both instant and through the app game. My biggest prize I have won three times already, a $25 Vons gift card. Twice instantly and once from the game. I also have well more than the 275 points needed for another $25 Just For U credit.

This game is much easier to win than in the past. And they must have lots of game pieces to give out as lately cashiers have been giving me stacks of them rather than counting what I should receive.
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Re: Ridiculous gimmicky Monopoly

Post by storewanderer »

CalItalian wrote: April 17th, 2021, 11:22 am But I have won many prizes - from O Organics canned tomatoes to French bread to Signature Select olive oil to nail clippers (at least 35 free items - 15 just in water bottles) and a few $1 off Just For U credit. Both instant and through the app game. My biggest prize I have won three times already, a $25 Vons gift card. Twice instantly and once from the game. I also have well more than the 275 points needed for another $25 Just For U credit.

This game is much easier to win than in the past. And they must have lots of game pieces to give out as lately cashiers have been giving me stacks of them rather than counting what I should receive.
I have found about 8 other prizes beyond the water as well. So far in the NorCal they are not generous with the game pieces and generally are still counting the pieces out. I think less than 10% of customers even take the game pieces. I have heard among employees that they seem to be winning more prizes this year than in previous years. With only two weeks to go in the game I am expecting they will become more generous shortly.
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Re: Ridiculous gimmicky Monopoly

Post by Bagels »

Per the rules, it's much harder to earn tickets this year than in the past: fewer items earn tickets and there haven't been any bonus ticket days (usually weekends are 2x tickets, then 3x tickets, sometimes even 4x ticket day) than in the past. I think I wrote this earlier, but at Pavilions, we bought a 1/8 sheet cake, two gallons of O'Organics milk and three gallons of Signature Select ice cream and some other crap for around $50 -- and should've received a whopping ZERO tickets. In past years, we should've received close to 10 base tickets (store brands). However, as others have mentioned, for whatever reason, fewer people are playing this year than in years' past, and thus the cashiers will hand us a generous stack of tickets.

My observations on game play: it seems as if there's more coupons this year, yielding fewer opportunities to earn tokens. I've received more than enough instant winners, although fewer in the past when they had donut/bagel coupons. The freebies are similar to years past (and like in the past, I've received coupons/freebies for stuff not carried in SoCal). And FWIW, I received a ton of three-month Peacock subscription coupons at first, but haven't received any in awhile.
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