Seth A. Richardson, srichardson@rgj.com February 12, 2016

If the Iowa Democratic caucuses showed the country one thing, it’s that sometimes it does come down to a coin flip.

Six precincts that needed some form of tie breaker resulted in a coin flip to determine who was awarded the contested delegate. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton won all six of the match-ups against Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

The tiebreakers did not affect Clinton’s eventual victory even with the slim margin, but the seemingly arbitrary rules made national news.

However, the Nevada Democratic caucus has a similar system, only with a process more appropriate to a state with a heavy casino industry: a card draw.

The draw only happens when a delegate needs to be awarded for one candidate or the other. A memo from the state party lays out the rules.

The party provides an unopened deck of playing cards. The deck should be shuffled seven times. A representative from each campaign picks a single card. The high card wins. In cases of cards of the same rank, the card suit controls the outcome with spades being the highest followed by hearts, diamonds and clubs.