NJ Lottery Poker Game Pulled Following Confusion Over Hand Rankings

6 years ago
NJ Lottery Poker Game Pulled Following Confusion Over Hand Rankings
15:22
23 Aug

When introducing a new poker-themed lottery game, it certainly would help if the creators of the game have a solid understanding of poker hand rankings.

Especially in New Jersey, where poker games are spread throughout the state's casinos and regulated online poker sites.

But that apparently wasn't the case in the Garden State where a new instant lottery game called High Card Poker was yanked just three days after its rollout because players with winning hands were not receiving payouts.


Who Didn't Understand?

"The New Jersey Lottery has discontinued the sale of the High Card Poker instant game due to player misunderstanding of the game’s win scenarios as stated on the back of the ticket," a state lottery representative told Northjersey.com.

Reports indicate that it wasn't the players who were misunderstanding how to win at poker, but rather the brilliant minds who devised the rules that failed to take into account the "kicker" tiebreaker that poker players know all too well.

Case in point: A player identified as Robert Chalet held the hand of 5-6-9-J-Q versus the dealer's hand of 4-6-7-10-Q. With neither player hitting a pair, Chalet's jack was in play and should have resulted in a winning ticket.

However, Chalet's ticket wasn't recognized as a winner because such hand scenarios were considered a tie and ties were not programmed as winning hands. The result was that more than one million tickets had to be pulled from store shelves, putting an end to the scratch-off poker game that was heavily promoted and promised over $13 million in prizes.

Northstar New Jersey is the company commissioned to operate the state's lottery program and obviously mucked up in this instance. The private company had to send employees to lottery merchants throughout the state, gathering up tickets before they could be sold.

Winning tickets already sold will be honored, with a reported $583,000 in payouts already claimed.


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Charles is a Chicago native and long time poker player who dusted off his journalism degree and began writing about poker following the events of Black Friday in 2011. He has written for a number of leading poker websites, offering his insights and expertise on subjects ranging from online poker leg...Read more

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