Chase the Ace fever hits Hay River

With a jackpot now racing past $120,000, Chase the Ace has become a must-attend event every Friday in Hay River and is even drawing crowds from as far away as Yellowknife.

"When we first started 34 weeks ago, it was just in our curling club," says Glenn Smith, director of the Hay River Curling Club, who is organizing the event as a fundraiser for the club.

"Now we're probably at around 500-plus. I'm hearing that the [Doghouse] sports bar is full at around 3:30." 

To accommodate the extra people, the event has expanded to include the bar's basement, the movie theatre, and now, the Soaring Eagle Friendship Centre across the road from the main event.

The way Chase the Ace works is that every week a winning ticket is drawn in a classic 50-50 style draw. Half the proceeds go to the curling club, 20 per cent to the winner, and 30 per cent into a rolling jackpot. The winner of the draw has the chance to pick a random card from a deck. If the ace of spades is drawn, the winner can take home the rolling jackpot.

That jackpot has been growing at a rate of about 35 per cent every week for several weeks, according to Smith, meaning that it has nearly doubled every two weeks.

From N.W.T. to Nova Scotia and back again

That rate of growth can lead to some truly remarkable events. Nova Scotia has been a Chase the Ace hotbed since prizes rose above $200,000 in the town of Noel, which had borrowed the fundraising idea from Inuvik, N.W.T.

Since then, a Sydney, N.S., jackpot hit nearly $3 million before it was taken home by Kathy McPherson, who had never played the game before. The frenzy around the Sydney game and another in nearby Inverness – with so many people attending from near and far that temporary cell phone towers needed to be put up – prompted critics to call for the Nova Scotia government to put a cap on the total prize, saying it had gotten out of control.

Critics also expressed concerns that the hysteria around Chase the Ace was causing people who couldn't afford to play to put up their social assistance cheques in the hopes of winning. 

There are 18 cards remaining in the deck at Hay River's event, one of which is the ace of spades. If the current rate of growth continues without the ace being drawn, that prize could hit $1 million when there are still 10 cards left.

Smith says he's impressed with how much money has been raised for the curling club already, and that anything from here on is just a bonus. 

"I'm ready for someone to pull the ace," says Smith. "Let's get a winner, and a life-changing amount of cash for them."