Car Numberplate Game - in North America

In North America

A North American version of the game, commonly referred to as the "license plate game," involves attempting to find a license plate from each U.S. state and/or Canadian province. After one player has spotted a plate especially rare in that region, the other players get a higher number of points by spotting another plate that matches the first. If you call out a license plate that has already been named, or you yell out the wrong state, you have to punch yourself in the face or pull out a hair from your head as a penalty. This is also possible in Ireland.

Another game common in North America is "license plate poker," in which the contestants attempt to form poker hands from the characters on license plates. Since North American plates have shorter texts than those in Europe, this is more difficult than it would seem. Flushes are obviously impossible, and straights are exceedingly rare.

A third game, not possible in most European countries, is spotting unusual "vanity" plates, where the car owner has paid a premium to get a particular code, like "REDBMW", "HERTOY," "BONZO," or "ZOMFG".

A fourth game, is spotting a licence plate from another state or country, punching someone, and yelling out the state or country it is from.

A point scoring variation of the game is played in the U.S. by assigning each plate a point value based on the last digit on the plate. Letters are assigned points based on their position in the alphabet, e.g., a plate with the letter M for the last digit is worth 13 points. A further variation allows points for plates that end in zero by moving back in the plate until a non-zero digit is found. In this variation the hypothetical plate ABC120 would be worth 20 points. Points are totaled for either the current trip or multiple legs of a trip by agreement.