Fake Friday: Economy Forces CHEO To Downgrade Lottery Prize To Trailer Home

Ottawa - Once known for their extravagant "Dream Of A Lifetime" lottery prize of a Minto Dream Home, the CHEO Lottery has recently announced it will downgrade its grand prize from a million dollar Minto home to a more reasonably priced trailer home in the Carleton Place area. The sagging economy and more frugal consumer spending habits has forced CHEO to re-evaluate its prize package and make the decision to replace its high end prizes with more affordable options.

Last year’s grand prize home was a 4,000 square foot mansion in a Minto development south of the city, and included a $110,000 sports car, diamond necklace from Jubilee Fine Jewellers and an all-expense paid European vacation. This year’s more economically feasible grand prize includes the 854 square foot “Park Regent' model trailer home, a charcoal briquette barbeque and a $100 gift certificate at Denny’s Restaurant.

CHEO Lottery Spokesperson Linda Nolan commented the prize may be less substantial, but the cause is the same. “Sure you won’t be winning over a million dollars worth of prizes this year, but you’ll be saving millions of children’s lives at CHEO.” Nolan explained.

A slow economy and a lack of consumer spending on lottery tickets has forced CHEO to make the difficult decision to lower the prize value this year, but hopes next year they will be able to offer a million dollar dream home again. “It may not be a dream home, but the trailer home prize this year offers exceptional value as well as laminate floors, a two piece bathroom and comes furnished compliments of Value Village.” Nolan beamed.

Located in a new trailer park outside of Carleton Place, CHEO invites interested ticket buyers to tour the home between October 1st and November 1st. The grand prize draw will then occur on November 12th. “We are seeing a lot of charities having to make cutbacks in their fundraising efforts, and we are one of them.” Nolan said. The reduced prize has also reduced the cost of lottery tickets from $100 each last year to $12 this year, or three for $30.

Secondary prizes this year include a jacket from Giant Tiger, an inflatable 6 person pool from Canadian Tire and also a half hour massage from the Massage Therapy course at Algonquin College.

For more information about this year’s CHEO lottery you can visit the website or view the prize on location in Carleton Place on County Road 12 just past the OLCO gas station.

Editor's note:

Every Friday on OttawaStart, we feature a “best of” post from the-o-dot, the satircal Ottawa blog.

This article originally appeared here.

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Related: ** Ottawa Health Guide