THEBACHA/FORT SMITH
A Fort Smith woman has won $100,000 on a scratch-'n'-win ticket in Alberta, continuing an extraordinary winning streak for community residents.

Jacque Bradley of Fort Smith is the community's latest winner of a big lottery prize after nabbing $100,000 with a scratch-'n'-win ticket in Alberta. - photo courtesy of Western Canada Lottery Corporation

The latest winner is Jacque Bradley, who bought the winning ticket in Manning on Jan. 31.

According to the Western Canada Lottery Corporation, Fort Smith residents have won $20.7 million in major prizes – $10,000 or more – over the past decade.

Most of that total is from two massive Lotto 6/49 jackpots – $11.3 million in 2007 and $7.6 million in 2011.

"That's sort of the really lucky and kind of amazing thing," said Kevin van Egdom, a Winnipeg-based spokesperson for the corporation.

However, van Egdom has other stats to further illustrate Fort Smith's winning streak.

For example, Fort Smith's $20.7 million from major prizes since 2004 make up a large percentage of all winnings in the NWT. Overall, there has been $28.3 million in major prizes won across the territory.

Fort Smith is also doing well in the number of big winners.

"I actually count 15 prizes of $10,000 or more since 2004," said van Egdom, noting that in the same time period there were 12 such major prizes – for a total of $322,000 – in Hay River, which has a population of about 3,600 compared to Fort Smith's 2,500 residents.

"The entire Northwest Territories has had 87 in that time," van Egdom said of $10,000-plus winners. "So I think Fort Smith is doing well in proportion. I think where Fort Smith really shines is in some of the amounts won."

Aside from the Lotto 6/49 jackpots, the big wins from various games include a $1-million prize on a scratch-'n'-win ticket bought in Yellowknife by a Fort Smith resident in 2005, $100,000 in 2007, $50,000 in 2004 and $47,000 in 2009.

Bradley was on a trip to a curling bonspiel when she bought five Texas Hold 'Em scratch-'n'-win tickets in Manning, and checked them hours later at a hotel in Grande Prairie.

To her surprise and shock, the first ticket she checked revealed a royal flush.

“I kept looking at it to see where the trick was," she said, adding she handed the ticket to a friend to check she had won and then brought it to a store to officially confirm the winning ticket.

Bradley said she had never before won such a large prize, just $5 here and there and $50 at most.

"Every once in a while, I'll buy a couple of scratchies," she said.

Bradley plans to use her winnings as a down payment on a new vehicle, and invest the rest.

Van Egdom said the Western Canada Lottery Corporation occasionally sees a small community win large amounts of money.

For example, he pointed to Peers, an Alberta community with a little more than 100 people, which had two multi-million-dollar prize winners within a year of each other.

Plus, he noted Faro, Yukon, has had a very lucky couple of months with a $25-million win, as well as a couple of other major prizes.

"What has been found in lotteries over the years is there are always those unusual sorts of things," said van Egdom. "There's really no predicting luck."

Despite community winning streaks such as in Fort Smith, the distribution of prizes tends to even out to the number of tickets purchased, he noted. "Over time it will do that, but you get these streaks that you look at and say, wow, that's just amazing."

Van Egdom said certain factors, such as how many tickets people buy, may somewhat influence when a community goes on a winning streak. "But really it comes down to just incredible, incredible luck."

Bradley, who is an instructor in the observer/communicator program at Aurora College, was also asked if she had any explanation for Fort Smith's run of winners.

"We're just lucky," she said. "I don't think there's any trick to it, that's for sure."