Hello all,

We quietly rolled out the UDE Prize Cards at some of the PCQs last weekend, and they will be available at all North American (US and Canada) PCQs and the $10,000 Championship in Detroit starting this Saturday.

A UDE Prize Card is a Bank of America Visa Gift card that has been loaded with the full amount of the prize money awarded at PCQs and $10Ks*. So instead of waiting 4-6 weeks for a prize check, the winners of these events will walk out with their prize immediately. These cards can be used whereever Visa is accepted, or you can go to an ATM and withdraw cash. We've even added a little extra to cover the ATM fees.

We think these are pretty hot, and hopefully you will too.

One caveat - for tax reasons, players in the US must have your Social Security number in order to receive your prize.

Cheers,
Ben

* Note: Top eight players at a $10K will all receive a $400 UDE Prize Card, and the top four will receive an additional check to make up the difference. We couldn't put the whole prize on a UDE Prize Card - federal regulations restrict the maximum that can be awarded per card.

Here is one of our local winners from Saturday's pcq.



We blew the card up a bit for the picture. I apologize for not getting a picture of just the card. I'll try to get a good scan of it tonight when Trent (pictured) comes down for our Tuesday night draft.

The card actually comes with $260.00 to cover fees for withdrawing your money. And you can activate it on the spot and spend it at your local game store. Trent is using his to buy his comics for the next month or so. Doug Tice from TN was our other winner. Both were really excited about receiving their money on the spot. Talk about instant gratification after a hard day's work. And for you teams out there, the winner that buys everyone dinner on the way home can't complain about being out of money now. Heh.


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54-DEGREE V6 ENGINE

Oh... so no prize cards for Pro Circuits? That's a bummer and a half...

Looks like it's still gonna be the 8-12 week wait...

WOW, that's incredibly convinient!

This is a great idea, and I can't wait to see it in action. It's all about the instant gratification :).

*is still waiting on pcq cheque from january*

>_<

Nice, so we just need our SSN not our SS Card to get a prize card, correct?

Great innovation, and incentive. Thanks UDE

Recon after you have used it...can u send me one...I want to see what they look like...ANd i got no chance at winning.

wow that looks freakin' good ! :)

i just hope this system will arrive soon in europe too !

Is this something you personally will ever have to worry about?

Seriously, why is there always someone that is chomping at the bit to post something negative. Saddens me.
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MAZDA 757 SPECIFICATIONS

Yup - you just need your number, not the card itself.

The .gov has pretty strict regulations on using these to distribute cash, as they have been abused by people laundering money or trying to skip paying payroll taxes.

Effectively, $600 is the maximum you can distributed, and most banks limit the cards to this amount. So Pro Circuits and the top four of $10,000 Championships will still receive a check.

Is this going to be in place for PCQ's this weekend?

According to Ben, yes.