Hay River curling club the real winner in Chase the Ace lottery
Les Ring of Hay River, N.W.T., may have won about half a million dollars last Friday but the community's curling club walked away the big winner of its Chase the Ace lottery.
Ring drew the ace of spades, winning the $463,079 jackpot, but over the course of nearly 11 months of weekly draws the curling club grossed more than $700,000.
After expenses, such as licensing, and donations to other groups including $80,000 to the new recreation centre, the club has raised about $600,000 toward its space in the new rec centre.
"You never know when that ace of spades could be pulled. We beat the odds," said the club's fundraising chair Glenn Smith.
A coffee can and a deck of cards
When the group held the first draw Friday, Jan. 15, they budgeted to make less than $5,000 off it.
"We started off with a coffee can and grabbed a deck of cards off the shelf at the curling club, wrapped up a box in paper to do the draw in and off we went," he said.
One person, often Smith, would go around the club selling tickets.
In Chase the Ace, tickets are sold for a weekly raffle. The holder of that week's winning ticket wins 20 per cent of ticket sales for that week and a chance to draw the ace of spades from the deck. If the ace isn't drawn, 30 per cent of that week's sales are added to the rolling jackpot.
As the jackpot climbed, the weekly event grew, drawing people from around the territory and eventually spurring airlines to offer charter flights on Fridays to the South Slave community.
By November, the club needed more than 40 people on Friday nights to handle the hour-and-a-half ticket sale rush at six venues, and the club was doing its draws live on Facebook video.
Too big?
With the ever-growing ticket demand, the club didn't know if it could continue to handle the event's growth. They decided that the last draw would be Nov. 18.
So for Smith, Ring's win on Nov. 4 was both a shock and a relief.
"That's it; it's over," he said. "And someone walks home with half a million dollars."
Despite the headaches of logistics, Smith said the community helped the events have a "great atmosphere, a social atmosphere" with a busy downtown core and lots of positive excitement at the draws themselves.
"It worked out quite well for us, more than we could have expected," he said.
"There's a lot of luck and a lot of management and a lot of things that need to go right to see it be that profitable."
And he's happy the money stayed in Hay River.
"They're long-time members of the community, so we know it went to Hay River, someone local, and to a good family that's supported many nonprofit groups within the community for many years," he said.
