NJ Lottery scrapped instant scratch-off game after only 3 days

Aug 18, 2017, 9:13 am (7 comments)

New Jersey Lottery

"High Card Poker" rules were confusing

By Todd Northrop

The New Jersey Lottery pulled its latest instant scratch-off game from retailers' shelves after players became confused by the game's rules.

High Card Poker (Game #01436) went on sale Aug. 7, and was canceled three days later on Aug. 10.  In a statement, the NJ Lottery said the cancellation was "due to the potential for players to misunderstand the game's win scenarios as stated on the back of tickets."

Despite the game being voided, all winning tickets already in circulation will be honored, according to the lottery. Retailers may continue to validate tickets they have sold and should follow normal cashing procedures for prizes less than $600 and assist players with claims over $600 in submitting their claim form to the Lottery.

As reported by NJ.com, a controversy arose when a man who would have won $150,000 if the game followed traditional poker rules had to settle for a $10 prize because the High Stakes Poker rules don't break ties, according to the game's rules.

Bloomfield resident Robert Chalet purchased a $5 ticket that when scratched off showed a hand of 5-6-9-J-Q. The "dealer" had a hand of 4-6-7-10-Q.

In a standard game of poker, Chalet would win the hand because his second-highest card, the jack, would top the dealer's 10. On the scratch-off ticket the prize for that hand was $150,000.

Instead Chalet won $10 with another "hand" he won on the card.

According to the win scenarios and rules stated on the back of each ticket, "A player's high card must be higher than any other card in hand without any pair in order to win the top-tier prize."

Since Chalet and the dealer each had a high card of a queen, he didn't win the top-tier prize.

When "a handful" of players similarly questioned their win scenarios, the lottery decided to pull the plug. 

Lottery officials said 4,368,360 tickets were printed for the game, with about 1 million having been distributed since the game launched on Aug. 7. 

The game's top prizes included three $150,000 prizes and 60 $2,500 prizes, none of which had been sold in the three days of availability. Lottery officials said 54 of the game's 880 $500 prizes had been claimed. 

Other prizes in the game ranged from $5 to $100.

Lottery Post Staff

Comments

music*'s avatarmusic*

 Being confused by the rules of a scratch off game is common. 

 Draw games are so simple. MM & PB 

Dance

Coin Toss's avatarCoin Toss

Thus one confused a lot of people;

Raven62's avatarRaven62

You can fool some of the players some of the time, but you can't fool all the players all the time!

Stack47

"scratched off showed a hand of 5-6-9-J-Q. The "dealer" had a hand of 4-6-7-10-Q."

Whomever created this game clearly doesn't understand the game of poker and their attempt to change poker rules on the back of a lottery ticket means they are not lottery savvy either. It's probably because some players simply scratch the bar code and use a ticket scanner to see if it won and don't care if "Q-J" beats "Q-10" in real poker or even know what type of hand they have.

play4shekels's avatarplay4shekels

Sounds to me like a glitch in the program used to create the tickets more so than bad instructions. Scratch offs are always designed to prevent scenarios like the one described in the article- I have scratched enough of them to see the built-in roadblocks.

play4shekels's avatarplay4shekels

Quote: Originally posted by Coin Toss on Aug 18, 2017

Thus one confused a lot of people;

Looks pretty straight-forward if people know what "horizontal" and "vertical" mean.

Coin Toss's avatarCoin Toss

It's a cop of a Mexican game. When you match a symbol you scratch it and that reveals a bean. 

That was the confusion.

End of comments
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