Does This College Football Themed Lottery Pull Tab Favor Michigan or Michigan State?

Pull tabs are a popular series of games from the Michigan lottery. Often played at bars and taverns but available at some retail locations, pull tabs are instant tickets where a paper tab is pulled to reveal potential prizes rather than scratching off a play area.

There is a pull tab from the Michigan Lottery that is themed around the two major college football programs in the state, the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and Michigan State University in East Lansing.

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While the Lottery can not use the copyrighted team names or logos, the prize symbols are green helmets and jerseys vs blue helmets and jerseys. Here's what the Bragging Rights pull tab looks like:

Notice anything? Hitting a row of blue 'Michigan' jerseys pays just a dollar while matching the green 'Michigan State' jerseys payoff five dollars.

There's a payoff flip when it comes to helmets. The blue helmets pay $100 while the green helmets award a winner $50.

READ MORE: The University of Michigan Is Opening a Physical Campus in Los Angeles - Wolverines are Conflicted

It's very likely game designers concocted the prize table this way intentionally as to not favor one school over the other. In fact, the more you study the ticket, the more it appears it was designed to appear very even. The 'Bragging Rights' logo features the word bragging in Michigan colors on top of the rights in MSU colors. But just below the MSU green helmet comes first before the U of M helmet.

Now consider what happens when you add the potential prizes. Green symbols are worth a total of $55 while the blue symbols would net a combined $101. Maybe someone at the Lottery is slyly putting one school over the other.

It's not the first time a state agency has sparked a tinge of controversy over the two schools. Recall the release of the Water Winter Wonderland licence plates with 'Michigan' maize and blue and then a rollout of Water Wonderland plates in MSU green and white.

While there likely isn't anything other than a random placement on the pull tab, anything to get Wolverine and Spartan fans yapping can be fun. And Bragging Rights along with any other Michigan Lottery game is intended simply to be fun to play within one's limits. Check out where to find the game at the Lottery's site.

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Would it surprise you to know that out-of-state U of M and MSU alum and fans can ride with official state-issued license plates on their cars? Here are licence plates for Michigan colleges issued by other states.