How other places raise money,

The Knights and I were discussing ways to raise money for the church and other charities.  I mentioned something I had heard on my travels out east.

The wife and I stopped off at a church in a town in New Brunswick, and were somewhat surprised to discover we had actually just walked into a cathedral.  It was undergoing extensive maintenance and repairs, and we got to chatting with a workman for a few minutes.

At one point he detailed the list of repairs being made. I whistled and said: "Whoa, the cathedral must have picked up a substantial debt for that."

"Nah," said the workman.  "It's already paid for.  They held a diocese wide Chase the Ace and it raised over a million dollars."

My curiosity was piqued about this Chase the Ace thing that could raise over a million bucks in one shot, but his explanation was vague, and I could not glean much from it beyond that it involved drawing cards, and hoping to find the ace.  I had seen some signs advertising Chase the Ace games out east, but none of them explained much.  I hadn't thought of it until the conversation with my fellow Knights, so I thought it was time I looked into it.

The game is actually very popular out east, and not so much out here.  Hence the reason why I had never heard of it.  It is simple in concept: you sell tickets for a draw.  Half the money goes into a pot, and other half goes to the charity or organization holding the game.  A ticket is drawn.  The winner of the ticket (who, for obvious reasons, needs to be present when the draw is made) then gets to draw a card from a deck.  If they pick the ace of spades, they win the pot and the game is over.  If they don't, the card they drew is discarded, and a new round of tickets is sold, with more money going into the pot and into the organization.  The process continues until someone finds that ace.

The game is risky for the organization, but potentially extremely profitable.  An early draw of the ace could end the with a small amount of money raised.  However, games have gone on for more than forty weeks and have raised more than two million dollars.  One game ran into trouble because the town population more than doubled on the later weekends when the pot was huge and the town's population more than doubled with people coming in for the draw, and the facilities simply did not have enough bathrooms for them.  Another game went down to the last six cards in the deck, and it was decided to have no more lotteries, but to just continue drawing tickets out of the last ticket sale until someone picked the ace, and anyone else who didn't get it would be given a consolation prize of $25,000.

That's the upside.  However, I can't help but notice that something seems amiss with this kind of two step lottery.  You don't buy a ticket for a chance to win a prize; you buy a ticket for a chance to win a chance to win a prize.  This is... just plain wrong.  The other downside is that with that much money flowing around, the government would get involved, and the governments out east have.  You need to apply for a lottery licence to play this game.

Also on the downside: people who are not willing to contribute to their church for the good of their community, or to fulfill their duty and the command of their Church, suddenly find all kinds of money to pay for a shot at more money.

So, on the one hand I am thinking: touch not the unclean thing.  On the other hand I am also thinking: what's the limit to how much money you can raise before you need a lottery license?