Written by: Krista Conrad, National Blog Writer

After 51 weeks of selling tickets and drawing envelopes, the Kin Club of Russell gave away $2.45 million to one lucky winner on November 16, 2025.

When her ticket was drawn, Shelley Eckford had a 50/50 chance of winning the jackpot, and she pulled the envelope containing the Ace of Spades to cash in on $2,455,512.

It was a record-setting jackpot for the Kin Club of Russell, which has been running Catch the Ace since 2017.

“This is the highest we’ve ever had by far,” said Catch the Ace Chair Doug Anthony. “We’ve gone 50 weeks a couple of times before, but there is a huge difference between Week 50 and Week 51.”

How does Catch the Ace work?

It’s a progressive lottery, with one draw each Sunday. One ticket from the week’s sales is pulled, and that person wins 20 per cent of the sales for the week – on November 16 that was $172,586 in winnings.

Then that person chooses one envelope. At the beginning of the lottery, each of 52 envelopes contains one playing card, and they have all been shuffled and marked blindly with a number.

“If they find the Ace of Spades, they win the jackpot, which is 30 per cent of everything we raise,” said Anthony. “If they don’t find the Ace, the envelope is retired and there is one less envelope to choose from, so your odds are improving each week.”

The entire draw is broadcast live on Sundays, with about 20,000 people tuning in.

But it’s not just about how much the winner takes home – the club also donates to several charities with the proceeds of each Catch the Ace.

During this lottery, a total of $3.3 million was raised for 26 charitable organizations throughout Ontario, including hospitals, other Kin clubs, and the Kin Canada Foundation.

The idea of including charities in the marketing and sale of tickets changed the trajectory of the lottery.

“We came up with the plan to start supporting all kinds of charities,” said Anthony. “What that would do is grow the jackpot, so people, instead of buying one ticket or two tickets a week, they’re going to be buying 10 or 100.”

The plan worked. Once selected through the application process, charitable organizations help the Kin Club of Russell sell tickets by marketing to their own audiences. Buyers can select which group or cause they are supporting when they purchase tickets.

“With everybody going out into their own little nook of the world, our lottery is growing immensely,” said Anthony. “We are the second largest Catch the Ace in the province right now, and we will be the number one by far the next round.”

Eight years ago, the Kin Club of Russell was the second Catch the Ace lottery to go online, and it has managed to keep costs low by developing its own software, which it also donates to other groups that want to start their own Catch the Ace.

In addition, being entirely volunteer-driven means the Club is giving back 87 cents on the dollar to charities.

“You can make a lot of money doing this, for very little work, as a charity,” said Anthony. “We’ve actually raised a total of $7.4 million since we started, and we have over $17 million in sales.”

It all began with modest roots. The first lottery was done through a municipal licence, and was restricted to $50,000. It ran for just over 35 weeks before the maximum total winnings was hit, and 16 cards had to be drawn before the Ace of Spades was found and the jackpot given away.

The jackpot that first year was $30,000, and the club made $40,000.

They continued building, and when Catch the Ace 3 hit a jackpot of $718,000, the Club decided to treat it as a business.

The cost of tickets also went from $5 to $10 each, which they felt was more aligned with the amount of work and costs associated with the lottery.

“We’ve got a great team of professionals who work very hard, we have volunteers, we have 70 retail locations, all the charities are doing their work, and we have members of the Kin Club of Russell who are really running this Board of Directors,” he said.

Toward the end of the recent Catch the Ace, many members were putting in 60 hours per week – normally this would be about 40 hours per week.

It takes a lot of behind-the scenes work to make the lottery happen: running a helpdesk for the public, marketing through various platforms, maintaining signage, ensuring all the charities are committed to selling their tickets and marketing the lottery, getting all the tickets out and returned on time to reconcile before each draw, sending out 50 or more invoices per week, and running a broadcasting studio.

“From the financial aspect, the technical aspect, it’s pretty amazing,” said Anthony.

It’s all about giving back, in whichever capacity the Club can.

Kin clubs in Ontario who want to be part of Catch the Ace can email the Kin Club of Russell to receive an application.

“You can’t lose money – it’s our licence, we do all the work,” said Anthony. “You just have to sit back and basically market your own cause.”

However, it does come with a couple of caveats: no money can be taken for the general account – every dollar must go to charity (the 55 members of the Kin Club of Russell work behind the scenes on additional projects to keep their general account afloat); and funds cannot be used to improve municipal, provincial, or federal lands or assets.

If clubs are interested in launching their own Catch the Ace, the Kin Club of Russell is ready to support by providing the software, as well as templates for applications and marketing.

“We just want to help Kin as much as we can,” said Anthony. “That’s why we help the Foundation and whoever else we can help. There are more than 120 clubs in Ontario, and we’d love to help all of them.”

Running Catch the Ace is a lot of work, but he said it’s worthwhile to have such an impact on the community.

Over the years some organizations have received more than $1 million from the Kin Club of Russell – including their local food bank, which received a cheque for $528,000 the first time the club supported it.

“Our food bank in our town is the only food bank I know that doesn’t need money,” said Anthony.

“When we all get working together it’s amazing what we can accomplish.

“And that’s what we’re doing, Serving the Community’s Greatest Need.”