Card Game

Card Game
Premiere Date	July 4, 1974
Pricing Game Location	Center Stage
Previous Premiered Pricing Game	Shell Game
Next Premiered Pricing Game	Race Game

Card Game is the pricing game played with a standard deck of 52 playing cards for a brand new car as well as with a special card deck to determine how close they must come to the car's price without going over to win it.

Gameplay

The goal of Card Game is to make a bid on the car that is within a certain range below the actual price of the car. First, the contestant draws a card from a special deck of seven cards to determine how close they must come to the car's price without going over. The values in that deck include two cards each of $1,000, $2,000 and $3,000; and one $5,000 card.

The contestant is then given an opening bid of $15,000, and asked to draw cards from a standard deck of oversized playing cards. The cards drawn are used to increase the contestant's bid: Number cards add the face value multiplied by $100 to the bid, while face cards, like tens, are each worth $1,000. Contestants may draw as many cards as they want until they believe their bid is within the required range.

Aces are wild in Card Game; if a contestant draws an ace, they can add any value they wish to their bid. Contestants are allowed to use an ace when it is drawn, or save it for later use. They are also allowed to continue drawing after playing an ace, although the ace can effectively make their final bid whatever they want it to be.

When they decide to stop, the price of the car is revealed and compared to the contestant's bid and if the difference falls within the selected range, he/she wins the car.

History

• Card Game premiered on July 4, 1974.
• Card Game has undergone a series of rule changes, mostly because of inflation:

Year	Opening Bid	Range Card
1974~1983	-	$200 to $1,000 each one (in increments of $100) (Aces were worth anything up to $1,000. Thus, the maximum starting bid done by the contestant is $1,000.)
1983~1993	$2,000	Two each of $500-$1,000 (in increments of $100) (No limit ace card bids)
1993~2001	$8,000	Three each of $500, $1,000, $1,500, and $2,000
2001~2005	$10,000	Same
2005~2008	$12,000	Two each of $1,000, $2,000, and $3,000, and one $5,000.
2008~2012, 2014~present	$15,000	Same

• When the game's rules were changed on March 16, 1983, the game was retitled "New Card Game" for approximately a year; in addition, the table received a new logo and paint job. On its first appearance, it was covered with a red sheet, and Holly lifted the red sheet to reveal the revamped game. Sometime in 1985 after the original name was restored, the game received another new paint job and a new 5-digit bid display, allowing it to be played for more expensive cars.
• On November 19, 2004, the table and display was changed again to include a copper paint job and a new logo using a set of cards. In the later years of his tenure, former Price Is Right host Bob Barker had contestants drawing an ace simply say what they wanted their final bid to be, instead of requiring them to do the math and come up with a value to add to the bid.
• Current host Drew Carey has returned to asking contestants to decide a value for drawn aces instead of stating a total bid, though he accepts final bids if a contestant offers one instead of a value to add.
• Card Game wasn't played from February 16, 2012 until May 14, 2014, with an all new, Vegas-style look, a new look for the Special Deck, a new monitor using cards as digits, and was played near Contestant's Row instead of on center stage for most pricing games. The actual price is also displayed on the display and does not show the difference. In addition, using the card value drawn from the special deck, this determines the range that the price should fall in. Like any pricing game using electronic displays, the green display turns red if it's ruled a loss, and unlike the previous displays, the display does not show "OVER" if the player goes over the car's price.

Pictures

The old hot tub motif.

The old hot tub motif (repainted).

The better looking & easier New Card Game. The card range holder is slanted.

Here it is again, but without the word "New".

The Lovely Green color scheme with the same font style. Notice that the card range holder is now facing straight down.

The fourth look. If you look closely, the player drew a card that says $5,000 with a star on it.

Card Game is Back!

This is an example of a loss. In this case, this contestant went over. However, unlike the previous displays, the word "OVER" does not appear in such cases as this playing, from May 28, 2014.

YouTube Video

Card Game playing from May 7, 1993 with a rule change and now permanently played for 5-digit Cars