Inverness Chase the Ace: Jackpot still up for grabs

The wildly popular fundraising game that keeps attracting thousands of people to a small Cape Breton town failed to find a big winner Saturday as the Chase the Ace jackpot grew to more than $800,000.

The game of chance, which involves finding the ace of spades in a deck of playing cards, saw the Inverness jackpot grow from $35 last October to $884,147.76 on Saturday.

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Melinda Orkish, a jewellery maker from Blackett's Lake, had the winning ticket on Saturday but pulled the seven of hearts. She still took home 20 per cent ($188,000) of the total ticket sales.

Mike Fraser, who's been the local legion's bartender for 20 years, says people came from as far away as New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island for a chance to play.

In fact, so many people were participating that a temporary cellphone tower was brought in to handle a surge in cellphone traffic.

Proceeds go to the Inverness Cottage Workshop, a charity for people with disabilities and the Inverness chapter of the Royal Canadian Legion. The Cottage Workshop plans to use the money raised for a new facility. 

Six cards

Cameron MacQuarrie, vice-president of the local Royal Canadian Legion, said there are six cards left in the deck for the next draw on Sept. 26.

MacQuarrie said they are waiting two weeks so officials can come up with a plan for dealing with the influx of traffic to the small community.

"People see this as a way to support community and at the same time, to win some money. A lot of money," MacQuarrie said.

The streets of Inverness were jammed with cars Saturday and many private parking lots suddenly sprang up, most of them charging about $10 for a spot.

Extra parking was also offered at a local school and the harness-racing track.

The town had 26 RCMP officers this weekend and set up command stations at the area for police and EMS to deal with the large influx of people.

MacQuarrie said organizers are postponing the draw two weeks to give themselves more time to work with police, emergency crews and the local government to get things better prepared to ensure public safety.

"We've had everyone pulling their weight but now the load has gotten so much heavier," he said.

Local businesses welcomed the late-season tourism boom, which included boats coming across the Northumberland Strait from P.E.I.

MacQuarrie said the event was transformed into a Ceilidh-type party.

He said it's the second year for the draw, which he had expected would raise only about $30,000.

"But this year it's a whole different beast, so to speak," he said in a recent interview.

MacQuarrie said organizers will be meeting Monday to plan for the next draw. He said some potential options would be to have people park farther out of town and bus them into Inverness and to have other venues available for people to be able to play.

MacQuarrie said they hope to have more information by the end of the week.