Duane Hicks
October seems to be Ted Scott’s lucky month.
The Fort Frances resident yesterday won $50,550 playing “Daily Keno” at The Place here.
Around the same date 15 years ago, he won $49,000 playing Bingo.
Scott, an avid lottery player, said he spent $50 buying five $10 tickets—all with the same numbers.
The winning number for $10,000 came up for all five tickets for a windfall of $50,000.
“What I did was I handicapped it,” Scott explained.
“I went and got a read-out of the numbers for 12 days, and the most prominent numbers I wrote down.
“I was going to get eight tickets on the same number but when I got over there, I got cheap,” he admitted.
“I haven’t got that much money—I’m an old-age pensioner,” the 81-year-old noted.
“Eighty bucks is a lot to throw at a ticket,” Scott reasoned. “[And] 99 times out of hundred you don’t win.
“So I said, ‘Well, give me five.’”
Scott bought five more tickets that each had slightly different numbers, and won on two of those—earning an extra $500 and $50, respectively, for a total of $50,550.
What’s more remarkable is that yesterday’s windfall occurred on nearly the same date as a prior payout.
“Back in 1998, I won $49,600 within one or two days of [yesterday’s date], Oct. 18 or something,” Scott recalled.
“It was at the Bingo Hall, on Super 7, the cross-country Bingo they had.”
“I guess October is my lucky month,” he chuckled.
But Scott also is proof that in order to win, you have to play to win.
“I buy every ticket imaginable,” he stressed, admitting that you lose far more often than you win.
“I won $1,100 last spring, but I spent three times that over the summer trying to win something else,” noted Scott.
“I am not ahead of the game.”
As for what he’ll do with his windfall, the good-humoured Scott said he hasn’t decided yet.
“I’ve lots of boys, you know, and they’re all poor like me!” he quipped.
