EDIT: If you're talking about a wild asterisk map, as in Select * From ... , then see other answers ...
If you are talking about wildcards in predicate clauses or other query expressions using the Like operator, (_ , % ) , as described below, then:
This is because whether using a wildcard affects whether SQL is "SARG-ABLE" or not. SARGABLE, (Search-ARGument-able) means whether query search or sort options can be used as input parameters for an existing index. If you add a wild card at the beginning of the argument
Where Name Like '%ing'
Then there is no way to cross the index in the name field to find the nodes that end in 'ing'.
If you add a wildcard to the end,
Where Name like 'Donald%'
then the optimizer can still use the index in the name column, and the query is still available SARG
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