BP Match 2 Trading Card Game

Match 2

Above is a typical 'Match 2' trading card.
The cards measure 2.5" x 3.5".

Match 2 was a promotional game issued by BP Oil Company in 1990. The full name of the game was BP NFL Players "Match 2" Trading Card Game.

This was a collect-and-win game with cash prizes up to $10,000. The game was only issued at BP gas stations in California for 42 days (October 21, 1990 through December 1, 1990). The game consisted of a paper game piece given to customers each time they visited a participating BP gas station. When the perforated tabs on the game piece were removed, two football trading cards were revealed. Each card has a 'Player Card Number' printed on it. To win a prize you needed to match two card numbers according to the following prize table.

Match These Two	Win This Prize	Quantity of Winning Cards Issued
Player #1 and Player #2	$10,000	1 (Player #2 is the Key)
Player #3 and Player #4	$1,000	3 (Player #4 is the Key)
Player #5 and Player #6	$100	18 (Player #5 is the Key)
Player #7 and Player #8	$10	325 (Player #7 is the Key)
Player #9 and Player #10	$5	990 (Player #9 is the Key)

A total of 3,250,000 game pieces were distributed which contained 6,500,000 trading cards. There were only 1,337 prizes available. Accordingly, there were only 1,337 prize-winning trading cards printed and distributed. That made the odds of winning a prize at 2,430 to 1. Those are terrible odds for a gas station promotional game. Typically, these games are designed with a chance of winning better than 100 to 1. The tag line for this promotion was "Win up to $10,000 at BP" but there was only one $10,000 prize and a total of only $23,000 in prizes in the whole game.

The rules describe what would happen if (because of a printing error) more prize-winning cards were distributed than were supposed to have been issued. The rules do not state that all the prizes would be awarded so, assuming some of the key cards were not redeemed, I estimate that much less than $23,000 was given away in this game. If the single $10,000 winning card was not redeemed, BP probably gave away less than $10,000.

There are thirty-six different common cards and five different prize-winning cards for a total of forty-one different cards in the set. However, there are only ten player numbers. As a result, multiple players received the same player number on their card.

The trading cards were printed such that the back of the cards are the visible part of the unopened game piece. As such, one card has the rules printed on the back and the other card has the name of the game with an action scene printed on the back. These are referred to as 'Rules Back' or 'Action Back' depending on the printing position in the game piece.

Since the trading cards are loosely regarded as football cards, they are slabbed by the major grading companies. Even common cards in high grade sell at a premium.

Seven unredeemed prize-winning cards are known; six are Andre Tippett $5.00 prize-winning cards (a photo of one is shown below) and one $10.00 prize-winning card.

Above: Front and back of a typical 'Rules Back' player card.

Above: Front and back of a typical 'Action Back' player card.

Above: Winning Game Piece, Andre Tippett, Player #9, which is the winning half of the $5.00 prize. Six of these cards are known to exist.

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