The Edmonton Eskimos are expecting a packed crowd on Friday night, as the team gets set to face the Ottawa Redblacks. It’s bound to be a beautiful night for a football game, but perhaps what will draw in even more fans is the 50/50 jackpot.
The $82,060 50/50 prize from the Eskimos’ season opener went unclaimed, so that’s where the jackpot will start on Friday night.
“Yeah, we’re looking at a pretty robust crowd on Friday night,” said Allan Watt, vice president of marketing and communications with the football club.
READ MORE: $82K Edmonton Eskimos home opener 50/50 prize unclaimed
This is the second time in three years the 50/50 prize has carried over. The last time, in July 2014, the jackpot soared to a whopping $348,534. Connor Croken, 20, went home with the money.
Watch below: Meet the 20-year-old who won the Eskimos’ $340K 50/50 jackpot
During the game in 2014, people lined up in droves to buy tickets, with some football fans telling Global News they waited in line for more than an hour. Several fans stormed out of the stadium after waiting unsuccessfully for their chance at the dough.
“I don’t think anybody could have been prepared for that. We didn’t realize that that was going to happen,” Watt said Wednesday, ensuring the club has learned from its mistakes.
Immediately after the game, Watt said the Eskimos updated their hardware, obtaining more handsets so they can sell more tickets in a timely fashion.
“We changed the platform since then that we work off [of], so it’s a more digital, robust platform for the processing of the tickets. And then we’ll have more sellers,” Watt said.
READ MORE: Couple wins $336K Edmonton Oilers 50/50 jackpot
More than 60 people will be on the concourse selling tickets and no seller will be alone. Watt said people will work in pairs so that if the paper runs out or things go wrong, they can work quickly to fix the issue.
There will also be a different setup for those who wish to buy large quantities of tickets.
“One of the things that kind of brought things to a halt was when the, sort of, high rollers showed up and said, ‘I’ll take $100 worth,'” Watt explained. “So we’re going to direct those people to tables on either side of the concourse — Gate 2 and Gate 13 — where we’ll be able to handle that right away.”
READ MORE: ‘We were just overwhelmed’: Eskimos official on 50/50 response
With 36,000 to 37,000 expected to attend Friday’s game, there’s no doubt the jackpot will be enormous, especially in Edmonton where people really embrace the 50/50 tradition.
“When I talk to colleagues in eastern Canada they go, ‘What’s the magic of the 50/50 thing?’ It just seems to work here,” Watt said. “Whether it works in curling clubs in the winter, or whether it works at hockey games in the winter. For sure it works at Commonwealth Stadium.”
READ MORE: 50/50 frenzy: Why Edmonton is so obsessed with playing the odds
Watt predicts this Friday’s jackpot will be even larger than 2014’s prize. The only drawback for the Eskimos’ employee?
“I can’t win,” Watt said with a laugh.
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