Found Orange, Got Green
January 20, 2004
RIVERWOODS, Ill. -- January 1, 2004 -- This holiday
season, finding orange earned five lucky people
a whole lot of green – $12,600 in total! As part
of the world's largest New Year's Eve celebration,
Glenn Gregory, Russell Koplin, Edilia Martinez,
John McCormack, and John Verwoert – all from New
York – participated in a live game show, hosted
by Ben Stein, on the main stage in Times Square.
Each of them stepped into Discover Card's Fasttrack
to Cashback money machine, a glass booth filled
with $100,000 in fake cash. Once inside the booth,
a fan blew the money around while contestants
tried to catch as much cash as possible. Each
of the five walked away with a minimum of $2,400.
In addition, Discover Card is matching each contestant's
winnings with a donation to the Juvenile Diabetes
Research Foundation International (JDRF), the
world's largest charitable funder of research
leading to a cure for juvenile (type 1) diabetes
and its complications.
To qualify for
the event, the contestants were among the first
five people to find orange wallets that Discover
Card “lost” throughout Manhattan, and to call
the toll-free number listed inside. Celebrity
host Ben Stein, from the Emmy Award-winning Win
Ben Stein's Money, led the celebration, which
took place on the Countdown Stage in Times Square.
Each of the contestants had 30 seconds to grab
for the cash in the Fasttrack to Cashback
money machine. Mr. Stein spent 60 seconds in
the money machine and his winnings -- $25,000
– will be doubled and donated to JDRF. This is
Discover Card's sixth year as Worldwide Presenting
Sponsor of New Year's Eve in Times Square.
“Grabbing the cash in 30 seconds was a lot
more challenging than I thought it would be,”
said Russell Koplin, one of the contestants.
“I'm excited that Discover Card let me win the
money for myself and for Juvenile Diabetes.”
About Discover Financial Services
Discover Financial Services, a business unit
of Morgan Stanley, operates the Discover Card
brands and the Discover Novus Network for more
than 50 million Cardmembers. The Discover Novus
Network is the largest proprietary credit card
network in the United States with more than 4
million merchant and cash access locations.