When Ken Sargent got the call from the Newmarket Lions Club this week, he was asked if he and his wife remembered to buy their $5-a-piece Catch the Ace progressive lottery tickets.
“I told them, ‘Of course, I’ve been getting the tickets every week’,” he said. “Then they said they had bad news, my wife lost. But I won!”
Sargent’s ticket was pulled in the Dec. 18 weekly video draw, which gave him a shot at choosing an envelope that could potentially hold the ace of spades. That ace from a 52-card deck of playing cards carries the top prize and officially ends the lottery. The person whose ticket is drawn each week wins 20 per cent of that week’s tickets sales, along with the chance to select an envelope to be opened for a potential 52 weeks of play.
The local Lions’ lottery was just more than halfway through when Sargent won it at week 33.
Sargent stopped by the Newmarket Veterans' Association Dec. 21 to pick up his $26,019 in winnings from Lions’ treasurer Ron Head and lottery co-chairs Don Gardiner and Rick Metcalfe. He also won the weekly prize based on tickets sales, which was $1,242.
It was the most money he has ever won by chance, Sargent said.
“I’ve won $250 at a casino, but I’m not really a gambler. I just follow the wife around,” he said. “This beats the casino and it’s more fun.”
The club’s first Catch the Ace lottery caught on in Newmarket because of the weekly emails sent out to players keeping them updated after every draw, co-chair Rick Metcalfe said. And the crew produced a video of the Tuesday evening draw each week and published it on the Lions website.
“It always comes as a shock either way each week when the envelope is opened,” co-chair Don Gardiner said. “Either the ticket-holder gets lucky or the Lions get lucky.”
The claps usually reach loud decibels when the ace isn’t found so that the potential prize pot can build up, much like what happened earlier this year in Sault Ste. Marie where the ace of spades was the last card drawn at 52 weeks for a $1.3 million prize.
“We would have liked to see the lottery get up to $100,000 to $200,000,” Gardiner said.
The Newmarket Lions Club applied for a new licence and hopes to begin Catch the Ace again Feb. 1, 2019. The proceeds help to fund its programs, including Coats for Kids and a Santa Claus fund.
Sargent said he has no plans for the windfall at this moment. He and his wife leave next week for a three-month sojourn in Panama City Beach, a Florida destination on the Gulf of Mexico.
“I wasn’t counting on it so it’s just a bonus,” he said, adding it could be used as a downpayment for next year’s winter vacation.
For more information on the Newmarket Lions Club, visit here.