How Technology can Help with the Social Challenges Created by Very Successful Chase the Ace Raffles

As of time of writing this article, the town of Tignish, Prince Edward Island is running a very successful Chase the Ace raffle. There are 13 cards left and the jackpot is already at $497,000. Sales start again this coming Friday.

Most Chase the Ace raffles require the purchasor of the tickets to be physically present to not only buy their tickets, but to win the prize as well. If the prize is drawn, and the winner isn't present to claim the prize after a given time-frame, a new draw is made.

Currently in Tignish, The legion and the fire department are considering whether two sales venues are enough as the draw's popularity grows. A short jump away and a month earlier, in Inverness Nova Scotia, their Chase the Ace lotto had a planned early finale, as their was undue stress put upon the towns volunteers, emergency services and even their cellular network. Raffle organisers had to make the difficult decision to end the raffle prematurely, walking away from strong raffle income in the name of public safety.

In the world of fundraising, although these are good problems, they are still problems. Technology can help with some of these problems.....

First of all requiring the winner to be present is somewhat antiquated in this era of global communications. Our electronic raffle system is capable of taking a person's phone number. Why not text participants who bought tickets the winning number? Hey even better let's give the winner a call. Tap50:50 uses handheld mobile devices with built in printers to sell tickets.....meanwhile ticket stubs right into the draw drum could be printing in the background, or even better a random number generator could be used to choose the winner.

Online sales could allow players to purchase tickets from the comfort of their home or on their mobile device. This could allow possibly more ticket sales, but less congestion of people trying to purchase tickets within a narrow time frame.

Currently regulators across Canada are deciding how to deal with the changes in the federal criminal code that would gives the provinces the right to allow random number generators and online raffles. It's my hope they consider what technology can do to help alleviate the social problems involved with having a very successful Chase the Ace raffle.

Sean O'Hagan

@raffleexpert

www.tap5050.com (probably the best raffle platform in the world)