Author:  L. Hartwell Affiliation:  Independent Researcher Abstract The McDonald’s Monopoly promotion—built through partnerships among a global fast-food firm, an IP owner, and specialist marketing/security vendors—looks like a nostalgic “prize game.” Yet its long history, including the early-2000s fraud scandal in the United States and the later redesign of controls, offers an unusually clear window into how modern economies are shaped by attention, trust, and platform-style