Thrill of the chase the ace: What are your chances?

All the fuss and,for some,all the travel for what could be a$300,000 chase the ace jackpot in Bay de Verde might makeyou wonder: is itworth the trouble?

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Memorial University statistics professorZhaozhi Fansaysyour odds are at least better than winning Lotto 6/49 but still not great.

He said you need to clear two hurdles to win: beselected to draw the card, and then actually pulling that precious ace of spades from the deck.

Chase the Ace

8 years ago

Duration 2:04

A massive chase the ace jackpot in small town Bay de Verde will have to wait as the top prize didn't go on Wednesday.

Based on Wednesday night's attendance and sales atBay de Verde, Fan calculated a person's odds of winning the jackpot at one in 42,000, although buying more tickets improve your odds while increasing your investment.

"I would say, as a statistician, it's almost impossible" saidFan.

The probability of winning this jackpotis higher than winning a 6/49, of course.-ZhaozhiFan

"I'm not a lucky person to win anything, whatever prize like that. The biggest prize I won, many years ago, was a pack of cookies.I spent a few dollars and got a pack of cookies."

Fan has no plans to drive to Bayde Verde to try to win next Wednesday's jackpot, buthe adds your chances of catching the ace are good when compared to big-jackpot national lotteries.

"The probability of winning this jackpotis higher than winning a 6/49, of course," he said.

"The chance of winning the jackpot in 6/49 is one over 14 million. That's a much lower chance than this one."

Not a win-win for all charities

While eye-popping jackpots are in the offing for some chase the ace games $327,000 in Lourdes,$200,000 and risingin Bay De Verde it's not working for everyone.

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A church in St. John's gave the fundraising methoda try and it didn't work out as well, so they've given up on it completely.

Herb Stead, who volunteers at Corpus Christi Parish on Waterford Bridge Road, said there were high hopes for a chase the ace there.

"We were a little disappointed with the outcome of the first one," he said.

"We raised $5,000 forthe church [but]it was a little bit long, dragged out in order to get it up to $5,000. We were hoping to go higher but that didn't happen."

When the churchtried again, itraised only $4,800 which is nothing to sniff at, but Stead saidit took a long time to conduct the two lotteries and the return hardly seemed worth it.

Competing chase the ace lotteries

Stead said he's not sure why it didn't work, but added there were five or six other chase the ace lotteries around St. John's at the same time.

With those competing chase the ace events, Stead said they've gone a different route.

"Previous to chase the ace we had a fundraising event and we raised $48,000 on a ticket sweep so we decided, 'You know what?'We may just go back to the ticket sweep,'" he said.

"It's not long, dragged out, and that's why we went that way."