''Wild Card'' (for part of its history ''Wild Card 2'') was a lottery game that was available in

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest and Mountain states, Mountain West subregions of the Western United States. It borders Montana and Wyoming to the east, Nevada and Utah to the south, and Washington (state), ...

Montana Montana ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota to the east, South Dakota to the southeast, Wyoming to the south, an ...

Nebraska Nebraska ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Ka ...

North Dakota North Dakota ( ) is a U.S. state in the Upper Midwest, named after the indigenous Dakota people, Dakota and Sioux peoples. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba to the north and by the U.S. states of Minneso ...

, and

South Dakota South Dakota (; Sioux language, Sioux: , ) is a U.S. state, state in the West North Central states, North Central region of the United States. It is also part of the Great Plains. South Dakota is named after the Dakota people, Dakota Sioux ...

, although at no point did the five lotteries offer it simultaneously. The game was administered by the

Multi-State Lottery Association The Multi-State Lottery Association (MUSL) is an American non-profit, government-benefit association owned and operated by agreement of its 34-member lotteries. MUSL was created to facilitate the operation of multi-jurisdictional lottery games, m ...

(MUSL), which is best known for

Mega Millions Mega Millions (originally known as The Big Game in 1996 and renamed, temporarily, to The Big Game Mega Millions six years later) is an American multijurisdictional lottery game. The first drawing took place on September 6, 1996, with six partic ...

and

Powerball Powerball is an American lottery game offered by 45 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and overseen by the Multi-State Lottery Association (MUSL), which also manages other large jackpot games such as t ...

. ''Wild Card (2)'' was drawn Wednesdays and Saturdays until February 24, 2016. The original version of the game began in 1998; it was known as ''Wild Card'', and lasted 15 months; it was played in

, and

. The game's format was changed, with a "2" added to the name, in May 1999; Nebraska dropped out upon the format change. North Dakota joined in 2004. In late 2015, the "2" was dropped from the name, although the game itself was not altered.

Format

Under the game's most recent format, whose first drawing was on January 16, 2013, players got two games for each $1 wagered; games had to be played in pairs. Each game was played in the same manner as ''Mega Millions'' or ''Powerball''; five numbers from 1 through 33 were selected. The sixth "number" was actually 1 of 16 representations of playing cards: a

Jack Jack may refer to: Places * Jack, Alabama, US, an unincorporated community * Jack, Missouri, US, an unincorporated community * Jack County, Texas, a county in Texas People and fictional characters * Jack (given name), a male given name, incl ...

Queen Queen most commonly refers to: * Queen regnant, a female monarch of a kingdom * Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king * Queen (band), a British rock band Queen or QUEEN may also refer to: Monarchy * Queen dowager, the widow of a king * Q ...

King King is a royal title given to a male monarch. A king is an Absolute monarchy, absolute monarch if he holds unrestricted Government, governmental power or exercises full sovereignty over a nation. Conversely, he is a Constitutional monarchy, ...

, or the

Ace An ace is a playing card, die or domino with a single pip. In the standard French deck, an ace has a single suit symbol (a heart, diamond, spade, or a club) located in the middle of the card, sometimes large and decorated, especially in the ...

of any of the four suits: clubs, hearts, diamonds, or spades. (The previous version drew from 31 numbers, but from the same number of "Wild Cards.") All prizes, including the

jackpot Jackpot or Jackpot! may refer to: Comics * Jackpot (character), a series of three Marvel Comics superheroes * ''Jackpot'' (British comics), a 1979–1982 British comic book * ''Jackpot Comics'', a 1941 American comic book from MLJ Publications ...

, were paid in

cash In economics, cash is money in the physical form of currency, such as banknotes and coins. In book-keeping and financial accounting, cash is current assets comprising currency or currency equivalents that can be accessed immediately or near-i ...

. The minimum jackpot was $200,000; it was $100,000 in the previous version. In addition to the jackpot, the other prizes in the 2013-2016 version were: * All 5 numbers without Wild Card (5+0): $6,000 * 4 numbers plus Wild Card (4+1): $500 * 4+0: won $30 * 3+1: won $6 * 3+0: won $2 * 2+1: won $2 * 1+1: won $1 * 0+1: won $1 Among the reasons for the 2013 changes to Wild Card was to attract more American lotteries to the game, although none joined since North Dakota in 2004. The final drawing for ''Wild Card'' was on February 24, 2016.

References

External links

MUSL official siteIdaho LotteryMontana LotteryNorth Dakota LotterySouth Dakota Lottery
{{U.S. lotteries Lottery games in the United States Computer-drawn lottery games