If you are a fan of the docu series - this is a must read and a must have. It adds so much more depth to the entire monopoly fraud situation. This kind of history is something that I always gravitate to written or on TV and this delivered. It went into great detail and many more layers to the situation.

McMillions is a fascinating deep dive into the infamous McDonald’s Monopoly fraud, and as someone who watched the documentary when it first came out, I grew up playing this game and was under the delusion that I would have a chance of winning. This book goes into the details and you’ll realize why no one had a chance of winning. I found the book to be an excellent companion piece. The book offers more in-depth insights and additional layers to the story, making it a perfect read if you’ve watched the documentary. It enhances the understanding of the scam and all the people involved. If you’re interested in true crime, business fraud, or just a wild story, this is a great read to pair with the documentary for the full experience!

Thanks you to the publisher Grand Central Publishing for providing an advance reader copy via NetGalley

From the makers of the docuseries also called "McMillions" comes a book that includes more detail and interviews. I had only had a chance to watch one episode (I have a huge list of stuff I want to see!) and I will definitely go back and watch the whole series now. I absolutely loved this book. I could not put it down. As I read, I kept envisioning a fictional version of this and was casting it in my mind -- I was drawing on the cast from the film "The Informant" and kept seeing Scott Bakula and Matt Damon in starring roles. The twist with this book and series is that it is about greed -- but not corporate greed, rather a bunch of individuals who were able to use their positions to influence friends and acquaintances to get in on the deal (of course the ringmasters got a huge cut for this favor). We learn how the fraud was committed - a head of security at the Marketing Firm hired by McDonald's to run their Monopoly Game, found a way to steal and replace the winning tiles. The take down happened on August 19, 2001 (and almost got revealed when a fax went to a newspaper instead of the local FBI office!) but as history reminds us, this huge headline-grabbing saga got wiped off the front pages by 9/11. One thing I did not realize is that the individuals who were in on the fraud, had to pay full restitution for the $1 million even though their payments from McDonalds were annual - so not only did they never see the money, they in most cases had to prepay the mobster at the heart of it -- and of course, they were left to pay the taxes on it too. Just an absolute fun read with humor on how the FBI infiltrated the network. Note -- if something sounds too good to be true - it probably is! Remarkably a few of the individuals in their gut knew something did not seem right about the scheme but they went along with it anyway.

Thank you to Netgalley and Grand Central Publishing for an ARC and I voluntarily left this review.