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Willena MacQuarrie called her grandchildren over to the front window of her home in Inverness, Cape Breton, and told them to look outside at all the people. People. Some were alone, though most were in groups, wandering up and down Central Avenue on the Friday night of Labour Day weekend, waiting.

They had come from all corners of Cape Breton and from as far away as Alberta, Halifax and New Brunswick. Most arrived by car. But a few came by boat, crossing the Northumberland Strait from PEI, tying up in Inverness harbour.

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“People are coming into town Friday nights and sleeping in their cars — just so they can be up early to line up for tickets,” MacQuarrie says. “This whole thing has taken on a life of its own. It is crazy.”

It is not your good old bingo game, as it might have been, back in the day, but a new lottery/fundraiser/cultural craze called Chase the Ace. A game of chance that has been transforming pretty Inverness, population 1500, into the biggest East Coast kitchen party — ever — every Saturday since summer began, as fortune seekers pursue a jackpot that started at $2000 and is expected to balloon to a million by the time of this weekend’s draw.