Card Sharks (1986)

Card Sharks (1986)
Premiere	January 6, 1986
Finale	March 31, 1989
Creator	Chester Feldman
Host	Bob Eubanks (CBS) Bill Rafferty (syndication)
Network/Provider	CBS & Syndication
Style	30-minute game show
Company	Mark Goodson Productions (The Card Sharks Company)
Episodes	826 (CBS), 195 (Syndication)
Origin	USA

Card Sharks (1986) was a game show that ran on CBS daytime and five-days-a-week syndication. It was a reboot of the Card Sharks that aired on NBC from 1978 to 1981.

As before, two players predict survey outcomes then the winner of the question plays a line of cards, predicting whether the ensuing cards are higher or lower than the card before. Differences between the NBC show and this:

• A player in the main game getting a survey question exactly right wins a $500 bonus.

• Ten people in the audience, each with a common interest, are used on certain survey questions.

• In the Money Cards, the contestant gets $400 of betting money for the second row. Also a matching card is a "push" (no money won or lost). Later in the series, the contestant vied for a new car in a bonus game. There were two: the first had the contestant placing a Joker card behind one of seven cards that he/she thought the word "car" would be concealed behind (a player could earn two additional Jokers during the Money Card round). The second bonus round had the player placing an indicator at a number he/she believed was among the ten audience members answering a survey question. The car is won being exactly correct or being one off either way. When kids played, they were vying for a family trip to Hawaii.

A syndicated edition aired concurrently with the CBS show during the first season. The variation here was in the main game: during the drawing of cards, prizes could be racked up, and the contestant won the prizes by winning the game.

Another syndicated version by FremantleMedia aired in 2001. That version aired only five months.

In-Depth

• At a Glance: Additional information about the series