Princess Margaret Cancer Centre's Home Lottery $3.85 Million Showhome. (Photo: The Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation)
It's a good day for Pasquale Santoli.
Santoli is the Early Bird Prize winner of a
Lakefront Cottage in the Kawarthas, valued at $880,000 plus a 2014 Audi vehicle or "Take the Cash" option. The prize is part of Princess Margaret Cancer Centre's Home Lottery program.
Record-breaking year
The Princess Margaret's Home Lottery concluded with a record-breaking sellout on May 2, 2014. This Home Lottery will deliver the highest lottery net revenue to date for The Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation (The PMCF). Funds raised by this program are critical in supporting research at the Princess Margaret, one of the top five cancer research centres in the world.
The Home Lottery program first launched in the spring of 1996 and has been one of the largest revenue sources for The PMCF. Last year, the Princess Margaret lotteries generated over $20.8 million net revenue. It is currently the largest individual charitable lottery program of its kind in Canada.
'Secret sauce'
Christine Lasky, Vice President of Strategic Initiatives at The PMCF, credits a variety of factors to the Princess Margaret's charitable lottery success.
"The cornerstone of our lottery program is the amazing real estate prizes," said Lasky. "The depth of our 10 real estate properties offers something for everybody."
But above all else, Lasky says that the key ingredients to the "secret sauce" are "continuous innovation and superb execution."
"We've innovated on several fronts," she added. "For example, we included a new cash calendar in the spring of 2013. Last fall, we added the 50/50 draw for the first time. This past Home Lottery, we combined these two add-ons".
The 50/50 lottery add-on resulted in a jackpot exceeding $4 million, making it the world's largest. One ticketholder will take home half of this amount.
Final countdown
350,000 tickets were made available for this spring's lottery program, and the entire allocation sold out minutes before the sales window closed.
Kevin Shea, Associate Director of Public Relations at The PMCF, was there as the clock counted down to the final ticket sales deadline on May 2.
"Seeing the last of the tickets sold just before our midnight deadline was extremely exciting," said Shea. "And while some lucky ticket buyers will have their lives changed forever, even more satisfying is knowing that the lottery proceeds support the extraordinary work taking place at the Princess Margaret."
Connecting lotteries to the cause
Each lottery program profiles different leaders at the Princess Margaret in order to showcase the type of work that lottery funds support. This spring, the lottery program highlighted Dr. Malcolm Moore, Head of the Division of Medical Oncology and Hematology at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre.
Moore also heads the Bras Family Drug Development Program at the Princess Margaret, where promising new cancer drugs are tested and evaluated. Through the efforts of Moore and his team, the Princess Margaret is currently the only cancer centre outside of the United States receiving funding from the U.S. National Cancer Institute to test new drugs.
With the support of donors, the net proceeds from the Princess Margaret lotteries are funding the creation of the new gold standard in cancer care: Personalized Cancer Medicine.
As leaders in the field, the Cancer Centre is committed to:
1) Detecting cancer earlier
2) Diagnosing it more precisely
3) Targeting it more effectively
4) Supporting patients according to their unique needs.
Home Lottery
draw dates
May 21, 2014
- Draws for all remaining
Home Lottery prize
- Draws for the top valued prizes will be made live on CP24 between 6:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m.
- The
50/50 Add-On Draw Winner Announcement
May 29, 2014:
- Major prize winners will be published in the Toronto Star and a searchable list of all prize winners will be posted online
June 1-30, 2014:
- Draws for the
Cash Calendar Daily Cash Prize of $20,000
- Winning results for Cash Calendar will be posted on Facebook, Twitter, and
www.princessmargaretlotto.com every day through the month of June.
June 6, 13, 20, 27, 2014:
- Draws for the
Weekly Friday Cash Prize of $100,000
To find out more about the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre's Home Lottery program, please visit
http://www.princessmargaretlotto.com.
To find out more about The Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation, please visit
http://www.thepmcf.ca.
