Wild card

The term wild card was originally used in card games, but the term has evolved to describe what the Merriam-Webster Dictionary calls "an unknown or unpredictable factor" in any number of domains.

Wild card may refer to:

• Wild card (poker) - a playing card that substitutes for any other card in poker and other card games
• wild card (sports) - a tournament or playoff berth awarded to an individual or team that has not qualified through normal play
• wild card (Foresight research) - low-probability, high-impact events
• WILD Card (South African national parks) - a smartcard-based annual season ticket to Southern African national parks

In computing:

• wildcard character - a character that substitutes for other characters in regular expressions
• wildcard DNS record - a record in a DNS zone file that will match all requests for non-existent domain names

In arts:

• Wild Cards - a series of science fiction/superhero books
  • Wild Cards (book) - the first book in the series
• Wild Card (TV series), a.k.a. Zoe Busiek: Wild Card, a Canadian TV series starring Joely Fisher
• Wild Card (Rippingtons album) - a 2005 album by The Rippingtons
• Wild Card - a 2001 video game for the Wonderswan Color
• Wild Cards (band) - a fairly popular Northern Georgia punk rock & roll band (formerly The Corporate Slaves)
• Wildcard (record label) - a minor record label - now part with Polydor
• Wildcards - a nickname of the most prominent starfighter squadron in Space: Above and Beyond
• Wild Card Stack - a programming block on the Toon Disney TV channel