The idea of the game is simple: if you’re the lucky ticket holder all you have to do is find the Ace of Hearts when you’re asked to pick a number, but with $6.7 million on the line, there is some added pressure.
“I’ve thought about it and two things, if my phone rings I would be extremely nervous and I would probably freak out and then the second thing I would just go with whatever number came in my head,” said Bounce 104.9 morning host Jeff Long.
Between personal tickets and a group pool at work, Long has invested at least $60 into tickets this week alone.
“I know, personally speaking, I would get maybe a $5 ticket a month or two ago randomly and then in the last month it’s gotten to a book and in the last couple of weeks it’s gotten to two books and it’s like you can’t not buy them because you don’t want to pass up that opportunity,” he said.
While the tickets can only be sold in New Brunswick, officials with the draw say that isn’t stopping people from other Maritime provinces, Quebec and even the United States from driving over to purchase tickets and get in on the action.
“Just to give you an idea, last week we know there was about 535,000 tickets in the barrel and our sales were $1.7M, that’s for seven days,” said Rene Beaudet, who founded the Chase the Ace in the area nearly a decade ago. “We know there was one, $4,058,000, which was the biggest one in New Brunswick and when we reached $4,300,000, we were told that we had the record for the Maritime provinces. Then I was told afterwards by a firm in Toronto […] that as far as they know we are the largest Chase the Ace ever in Canada.”
Chase the Ace has been going on in the area for about eight years now, but this specific jackpot has lasted at least 45 weeks.
Currently there are only seven cards left, with one of them being the Ace of Hearts.
“If the Chase the Ace comes out tonight, somebody’s going to win about $6.7 million,” said Beaudet. “Now there’s a large chunk of that money that stays in our pot and the bulk of it goes to the VTT Club and the Friends of Healthcare and we decided then that we’re going to make donations and we do make donations to the three senior clubs in our area and the scudo club.”
He says in order to have a successful Chase the Ace draw you need two things: a lot of luck and a good cause to support.
“It’s so exciting and I mean we just can’t wait for Tuesday to come around,” he said. “This place will have a lot of people in here and you can feel it in the air and you can feel it if you drop into a grocery store or drop into a restaurant, everybody talks about the Chase the Ace.”
Tickets can be purchased at multiple local businesses in the area throughout the week and at the Salle Blanche in Petit-Rocher right up until 9 p.m. on draw day.
Plus what’s best of all is even if you loose by not picking the ace, somehow you still win.
“We ask you to pick a number and if you pick number 27 and if it’s not the Ace of Hearts you’re going to win a consolation prize, but to give you an idea on the consolation prize, last week was $345,000 so the consolation prize is now bigger than most Chase the Ace we ever had in this area,” said Beaudet.
He admits that he never expected it to become this successful and they were happy the first year when the pot was only $53,000, but he says every week is exciting and he’s happy that it’s made such a big impact.
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