More than half a million dollars can be won tonight in Deep River.
The Catch the Ace lottery is down to the final three cards: ace of spaces, eight of spades and king of diamonds.
The Deep River and District hopsital foundation set a goal of raising $20-thousand in the lottery, which so far has raised $750,000 in the first 50 weeks of the progressive lottery.
"It has gone completely crazy. We have people coming from the St. Lawrence Valley, Morrisburg, Prescott, Belleville, people from Ottawa coming here to buy tickets" said volunteer and hospital foundation board member Jim Gibson. "And the last two winning tickets were sold here so I think that adds to the fever."
Nearly everyone Ottawa Valley has bought in to the craze.
"I just got that feeling, that's all. What the heck, you don't have a ticket, you can't win!" said Gord Trylinski, who purchased two tickets for the 8pm draw.
Three cards remain in the Catch the Ace fundraising lottery in Ottawa Valley supporting Deep River Hospital; grand prize topping $500,000 if ace of spades is drawn @ctvottawa pic.twitter.com/SKxuqoRcRG
— Mike Arsalides (@MArsalidesCTV) February 21, 2019
"We hoped that this lottery would get us to $20-thousand and now look where we are...almost a million, if we can get there, I've dreamt of this moment." said Deep River and District Hospital Foundation executive director Ashley Pardy.
"It's a frenzy, it's more popular than marijuana, I would say. They're going crazy over them, I've never seen anything like it before." said Allan Bowers of Bowers' Esso and Grocery.
"Not one customer has been in today and hasn't got a ticket" said Drea Lemay of Drea's Barbershop; where customers and staff have been buying tickets for the draw.
Volunteers said 5 thousand more tickets were printed for sale at Perkins and they're planning to sell out again with an estimated weekly prize of more than $60,000.
