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.