May the ace be with you! Chase the Ace with the Math Missus

There's a one in 13 chance that someone is going to win almost three-quarters of a million dollars in GouldsWednesday night.

And there's a one in 1.1-million chance it'll be you.

The Chase the Ace lottery at St. Kevin's Parish has officially blown up, with the prize this week expected to near $750,000.

• Half-cracked? 'Whole cracked': Goulds goes ga-ga as elusive ace remains uncaught
• 'It's good to have a little bit of luck': Goulds man wins at Chase the Ace again, leaves $600K jackpot

That's three-quarters of a million dollars.

The Math Missus just had to know: how does Chase the Ace work, how do the probabilities shake out and mostimportantly, is there any way to game the lottery to put the odds in your favour?

Jayde Eustace is a statistician with Johnson Insurance and she did some major number-crunching for us.

Check out the emergency Math Missus Chase the Ace-edition video where she walks us through the game and all the chances we have at winning.

In all of her number crunching, Eustace found some interesting evidence of human psychology at work in this contest. Ticket sales took a big jump after the prize hit $100,000 and then again after it hit $500,000. Those amounts aresignificant, newsworthy benchmarks for a prize jackpot.

Take a look:

Chase the Ace seems to have really taken off in Atlantic Canada, in particular. Eustace thinks this might be because populations are smaller, so the frenzied crush of people running after that ace of spades is more manageable than in, say, Ontario.

• More Nova Scotians swapping bingo cards for Chase the Ace

In a small community, there's also a good chance you'llknow the winner that is, if the winner isn't you.

"It'd be tough to determine the exact probability," Eustacesaid. "But they say in Newfoundland there are two degrees of separation rather than six."

May the ace be with you!