Monopoly Madness

I will admit, my family is way more excited about the new stack of red Monopoly game pieces than the food we just picked up at .

This game, Monopoly, has a lock on our attention as a group activity. We have baggies for saving the coupons, and a separate container for the duplicate game pieces.

The game works like this.

Every time you shop at Pick 'n Save you get a game ticket, which contains four game markers. Some game tickets contain special coupons. You affix the game markers to a game board, trying to fill out each section to win a prize.

Only, we can't seem to win. Anything. So I decided to look into this.

And, guess what? We’re not alone. No one from the Shorewood store has won anything. Yet.

I found out two things that should make you happy, however, as it made me smirk.

Starting today, you get 20 game pieces with every Pick ‘n Save card purchase. There are a lot of prizes left to be claimed.

Employee at the Shorewood location, Justin Borchardt, said people are coming in a lot more frequently for groceries and buying more items just to get more monopoly pieces. 

He also explained the difference between the employee Monopoly game and the one that consumers are playing. Employee pieces are blue.

One frequent shopper, Lara Dalbey, was laughing at my exuberance at being handed a stack of new pieces. So, I interviewed her for the story (it’s only fair). She said that she doesn’t play, but did it a few times and after she didn’t win, gave up. She thinks that to win something like this, you have to “really obsess, like those people they have on TV sometimes who talk about how they spent every day working on winning, going all over the state, doing all this stuff on the computer and trading with others.”

If you are warming up for Box Tops season or just want to geek out on Monopoly statistics before more election stats, check these figures.

Some lucky soul named Kerri H. won the $50,000 vehicle (we’re thinking she tore through the miles on her old car, trying to win the sweeps, right?) but all other major prizes are yet unclaimed. The rest of the major prizes have not been won, as of July 30. You could still win the $250,000 dream home (not sure where it is – assuming you can use the money towards any home?), one of four $10,000 vacations, one of two sets of $50,000 cash or one of three $25,000 car prizes. In the smaller prizes, there are enough left to make you hang on to your game board a little longer. Twelve $1,000 prizes, 41 $500 cash/grocery cards, 19 $250 grocery cards, 24 iPad2s and 34 iPods are still unclaimed.

Happy shopping, at any Pick ‘n Save, Rainbow, Metro Market or Copps store. You will be spending some time opening the little red game pieces tonight.