Catch the Ace lottery deals a winning hand

There’s a lot to like in the story of Catch the Ace, the community lottery that wrapped up this week in Hagersville, with a Nanticoke man claiming the approximately $2 million prize.

This isn’t your average Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation lottery. First, it’s local through and through. The sponsoring agencies were the local Lions Club and Hagersville Rocks, a committee of the town’s chamber of commerce.

The organizations reaping the needed benefit — more than $3 million — were the West Haldimand Hospital and Healthcare Foundation, Hagersville Food Bank and other community organizations and initiatives.

About $6.1-million worth of tickets were sold over the 45 weeks the lottery ran. As the pot grew, so did enthusiasm, eventually leading to many non-locals coming to buy tickets, and spending on food and other shopping, leaving incremental dollars in the business community. It became so popular that congestion and littering became issues for some locals, but considering the state of the local and regional economy, that’s not the worst problem to have.

And based on media reports from local journalists like Tara Lindemann of the local Sachem newspaper, it sounds like the lottery became a community building and engagement exercise as well. Local businessperson Rita Haviland put it this way: “What’s happening to our town never happens, and it’s pretty special … People are coming from all over for a chance to win, and we benefit locally, particularly the hospital … Sure there are some inconveniences and irritations, but the (groups) are doing a tremendous job looking after our community.”

Back to the local part. OLG does community infrastructure investment, too, and that should be acknowledged. But OLG is a big, faceless, expensive bureaucracy while Catch the Ace is entirely a hometown effort. That’s a great message.

Would it work in a bigger market, such as Hamilton, where there are lotteries almost all the time for one organization or another? We don’t pretend to know. But the smaller communities within Hamilton sound like likely candidates for a project like this. Building community, helping local non-profits, collaborating for a good cause — what’s not to like?