Embarrassing withdrawal of New Jersey poker scratch card game

New Jersey state lottery operator Northstar had to make an embarrassing product withdrawal of its High Card Poker scratchcard game this week within days of launch after players pointed out that the card ranking used in the game was wrong.

High Card Poker offered a top prize of $150,000, with publicity promising a total of more than $13.6 million in prizes. The player goal in the $5 game was to beat the dealer’s hand, but the erroneous card ranking caused confusion over the rules, and the game was quickly withdrawn.

Lottery spokeswoman Judy Drucker said that the discontinuation of the new game was due to the “…potential for players to misunderstand the game’s win scenarios.”

She assured players that all of the winning tickets in circulation will be honoured, and revealed that more than 40,000 winning tickets have already been claimed.

The publication North Jersey.com reported that over a million tickets for the game had been distributed, and that 4.3 million tickets had been printed.

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