Fort McPherson Chase the Ace pot grows to more than $230,000

A Chase the Ace fundraiser running for nearly a year in Fort McPherson is growing to mammoth proportions, with 41 cards drawn and just 11 remaining.

To play in a Chase the Ace, you buy a ticket and hope your ticket gets drawn. If it does, you then have a chance to draw the ace of spades from a pack of cards.

Find the ace and you win the jackpot. Miss it and the prize pot rolls over to the next week, when the next person will have a slightly smaller pack to choose from.

Organizer Jack Blake told Cabin Radio the Fort McPherson jackpot now sits at more than $230,000, raised through sales of $5 tickets since the first draw on October 3, 2025.

“This has always been one of our favourite fundraising opportunities,” Blake said.

Proceeds from the fundraiser go to benefit the Peel River Music Festival, where Blake is also on the organizing team.

A death in the community has placed some uncertainty around when the next draw will take place, though Blake said it might go ahead on Friday.

“We have a number of different fundraisers throughout the day. So there’s bingo, there’s ticket sales, Chase the Ace sales. People come in throughout the day and buy their ticket, and stay tuned to the radio after bingo to see if their ticket is pulled,” he said.

“Once their ticket is pulled, we usually do receive an audience. So there would be a number of people down at the hamlet to witness the shuffling of the cards and to see if the person picks the ace.”

That audience has been growing.

“When it first starts, it’s just the community. You would see very few people buy in, even within the community,” said Blake.

“Once it starts growing up to the tens of thousands, that’s when you start to see people from out of town come to the community and try their luck. Within the past two months, we have seen a lot of out-of-towners, and it would get very busy throughout the day.”

There are rules that govern your ability to play the game remotely.

Blake said people are warned they have to be physically present for the draw – or arrange for someone to be there on their behalf, which usually comes with an agreement to split the proceeds.

Fort McPherson, which is home to about 750 people, has a history of big Chase the Ace moments. Back in 2018, two people split a $150,000 jackpot when they drew the ace from six remaining cards.

Blake hopes the funds raised will have a big impact on the newly introduced Peel River Music Festival.

“We are in our second year. We held an event in early July. We brought up five different bands from the south and from within the North,” he said.

“We thought it was a good idea to start an event like this so we could try to bring the community together. We needed more events like this where we were all coming together and enjoying our time. There’s just too much negativity, and we want to try to draw people away from that.

“This fundraiser is going to give us the opportunity to try to expand on our music festival and try to bring some new, interesting things to the community in the future.”