Broadcast History:
NBC Daytime April 24, 1978-October 23, 1981
Host: Jim Perry
Announcer: Gene Wood
Packager: Mark Goodson-Bill Todman Productions

Card Sharks was a daytime game show that aired on NBC from 1978 to 1981. Jim Perry, in his first American game show, handled the hosting duties while Gene Wood served as announcer.


The game consisted of two contestants attempting to correctly guess if one card was higher or lower than the card before it. Each contestant was assigned a standard 52-card deck and hard their cards dealt into 5-card rows.


Control of the game was determined by toss-up survey questions in which people had been asked their reaction to a hypothetical situation or their opinion on a certain issue, i.e., "If you knew your best friend was cheating on his wife, would you tell her?". The contestant with control would name how many, out of 100, they believed had answered a certain way. The other contestant would then decide if they believed the actual number was higher or lower than their opponent's guess. If the contestant who guessed higher or lower was correct, they won control of the cards; if not, their opponent won control of the cards. Starting in 1980, in the rare event that a contestant's guess was exactly correct, they would receive a $500 bonus.

Once a player won control of the cards, they had the option of passing to their opponent or trying to call a rack of cards higher or lower, with the Ace ranking as the high card and a Deuce ranking as the low card. They started with a base card, and would guess whether the card that followed it was higher or lower. Once they made their guess, host Jim Perry would turn over the next card. If the contestant called the card correctly, they would have the option of continuing on and calling the next card higher or lower, or they could "Freeze" and preserve their progress. An incorrect higher/lower guess caused the contestant to lose all progress back to their base card, and if the contestant chose to "freeze", the game would move on to another question. Each game had up to five questions, with the last question called "Sudden Death", and one of the contestants had to win on that turn of the cards.

The first contestant to reach the end of their rack of cards won the game and $100; it took two games to win a match. If the contestants had tied at one game a piece, then the tiebreaking game would consist of only three questions, and the rack would consist of only three cards instead of five.

At the conclusion of the match, the winner would move onto the bonus round, known as the "Money Cards", which offered a chance at a cash prize of up to $28,800 in cash. Three rows of cards were dealt from the standard deck, with three cards on the bottom two rows and one card at the top. Each row also had a space for a "base card", which would be the first card that would be turned over for the contestant to see.

The game would start at the bottom row, and the contestant would be awarded $200 of betting money and the base card would be revealed. Contestants would have the option of playing their base card or changing it in hopes of getting a better card, and they would have to bet on whether the next card was higher or lower. A correct call netted them the amount of their bet, an incorrect call deducted it from their winnings. If a contestant found the next card was identical to the previous card, this was considered an incorrect call until 1980, when the show instituted a rule change making it a "Push" for no loss and no gain. Minimum bets were $50, and maximum bets were however much the contestant had accumulated up to that point. When the contestant had completed the first row, the last card from that row would be moved up and become the base card for the second row, and an additional $200 of betting money awarded. At this point, the contestant would again have the option of changing the base card or playing it. Upon the completion of the second row, the last card would be moved up to the third row for the "Big Bet", which required the contestant to bet at least half their money. As was the case with the base cards of the first two rows, the contestant could choose to change their base card at this point.


The maximum amount it was possible to win in the Money Cards was $28,800, a feat acheived only once, in October 1978. Unlucky players who bet all their money on a card and were wrong would "Bust". If the bust occurred on the first row, the game would continue, as the second row awarded them an additional $200 of betting money. If a bust occurred at any subsequent point in the game, however, the contestant would end the bonus game with no additional money.

Throughout its 42-month run on NBC, Card Sharks held a number of special weeks and tournaments. Among the most notable is the Game Show Hosts Tournament held in 1980, which pitted hosts such as Jack Clark, Allen Ludden, Wink Martindale, and Gene Rayburn against each other. In the summer months and also during Christmas weeks, the show would have special "Young Peoples Week" episodes, in which children would play the game. Additional prizes, such as a weekend at Disneyland and a color TV, were awarded to all contestants who played during the Young Peoples Weeks, even if they hadn't made it onstage.


Card Sharks, which debuted on NBC the same day as fellow betting/luck-based game The New High Rollers, found itself with middling ratings, but managed to hang on and keep getting renewed multiple times. In 1980, with NBC's decision to devote 90 daytime minutes to David Letterman's new show, Card Sharks found itself once again in danger, but NBC kept the series going and moved it to 12 noon eastern, between Wheel of Fortune and Password Plus. On October 23, 1981, after a three-and-a-half year run and 864 shows, the series signed off for the final time on NBC, and was replaced the following Monday by the Alex Trebek-helmed Hollywood Squares variant Battlestars. Jim Perry would return to NBC as the host of $ale of the Century on January 3, 1983, and would remain in that post until that show's cancellation in 1989. A revival of Card Sharks hosted by Bob Eubanks aired on CBS from 1986-1989, with a syndicated evening version hosted by Bill Rafferty running concurrently during the 1986-87 season. Another revival ran for 13 weeks in the fall of 2001.

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