Canadians Are Starting to Believe ‘Roll Up the Rim’ is a Scam; No One Ever Wins

Tim Hortons have been copping a lot of negative publisicity in Canada due to their decision to cut employee benefits off the back of the minimum wage increase in Ontario and now they are drawing attention for their ‘Roll Up The Rim’ contest.

The Tim Hortons promotional contest ‘Roll Up the Rim to Win’ has become a Canadian tradition.  People across the nation swarm to their favourite coffee shop in hopes of winning a car, a TV, or other great prizes by rolling up the rim of their coffee cups to see what is beneath.  Unfortunately, it is starting to look like nobody wins anything besides a free coffee, or doughnut.

This year’s ‘Roll Up’ season kicked off in early February and Canadians are taking to the internet to express their frustration that nobody ever wins.  Tim Hortons claims that one in every six cups is a winner but, long years of people scrolling up to find a “please play again” has Canadians questioning their estimated odds.

Of course no one actually expects that the car prizes are going to be as common as a free donut but there is a lot of skepticism out there that the ‘real’ prizes exist at all.

Here are the “Roll Up The Rim” odds :

• A New Car: 1 in 7,498,772
• $5,000 CIBC Prepaid Card: 1 in 2,999,509
• A TV: 1 in 1,999,672
• A TimCard: 1 in 12,498

Besides the frustration of never winning, some are calling the whole contest a scam and saying that no one will ever win the bigger prizes.  Many are choosing to take McDonalds up on their $1 coffee promotion through February, which guarantees a free coffee on every seventh cup.

This year Tim Hortons has added the new prize of ‘Free Coffee for a Year’ but, we will have to see it to believe it.

What do you think? Is ‘Roll Up The Rim’ a scam or do people just like to complain.

2019 Update: It has recently been claimed that some Tim Horton’s employees are pre-rolling the cups and keeping the good prizes for themselves.

See this article for more details.