MANITOULIN—Manitoulin Health Centre (MHC) has collaborated with over 60 hospital partners in the province on the “Split the Pot” lottery game, which in its latest game campaign has a guaranteed winning prize of $500,000 to the grand prize winner and a total payout of $1.2 million.
“MHC is very excited to collaborate with our partner community hospitals as part of the Split the Pot lottery,” said Paula Fields, president and chief executive officer of MHC last week. ‘We are a two-site rural hospital that provides a spectrum of health care services to the residents of the Manitoulin region and a large tourist population. Split the Pot Lottery allows us to share, while also ensuring that MHC has state of the art and life saving equipment so that our community can stay healthy and safe and continue to receive quality care. It will further enable us to continue to expand the services that we provide, keeping care close to home.”
Eric Theriault, MHC vice-president of corporate support services and chief financial officer spearheaded this initiative for MHC to be a partner in this endeavour.
“There here are over 60 hospitals and partners uniting in this lottery,” said Mr. Theriault. “It’s a way some hospitals get into the big prizes. With the Split the Pot lottery the guaranteed prize (in the next draw) is $500,000 and the estimated pay out for the next campaign (draw) is $1.2 million.” He explained, “this is not a 50/50 draw, the structure is 50 percent is won by multiple winners. One winner of the grand total will receive 60 percent of the pot, two ticket purchasers will split 20 percent of the pot and 10 people split 20 percent of the jackpot. So, there are actually 13 winners in the grand prize payout. And there is a whole slew of other winners like early bird ticket draws.”
“With the Split the Pot lottery there are four campaigns held each year,” said Mr. Theriault. “Two draws have already taken place this year, and the next campaign will run from August 8-September 19, over a six-week period. The final campaign for 2024 will run from October 17-November 28.”
Mr. Theriault explained when someone buys a ticket, they have the opportunity to select the participating hospital of their choice to benefit from revenues or can select all participating hospitals when they enter the lottery.
“With Split the Pot, when a person purchases a ticket and fills in a form there is a drop down area on the form for them to indicate which hospital they want to support, with all the revenues going to that hospital. So, if someone wants to support the MHC they can indicate this on the form, and revenues will come to MHC,” he said. He noted as well there are several ticket purchase options available.
Mr. Theriault said the amount of the prizes in this lottery are ‘life changing’ amounts. They are not going to be $20,000 amounts but guaranteed prizes of $500,000 as is the case in this next campaign.
“Absolutely we feel being a partner in this, it is going to help the MHC. Anything that can help support capital project costs (which are not funded by the province) is going to be beneficial,” said Mr. Theriault. He said that along with many small hospitals, there are some larger sites also collaborating. For instance, Health Sciences North, North Bay Regional Hospital, Espanola Hospital and many regional health partners are participating.
For more information and details go to splitthepot.ca
