Ron Lang and his wife Sue were the big winners at last week’s Queen of Hearts drawing at Brookie’s in Ripley. (Photo courtesy of WCPO)
By Mark Carpenter
People’s Defender
Large numbers of Adams countians were among the throngs of people who traveled to Ripley over the last few Wednesday nights, all crowded into the river village with the dream of winning a Queen of Hearts drawing that eventually grew to a $1.6 million jackpot, sponsored by Brookie’s. a bar in downtown Ripley.
How does a Queen of Hearts drawing work? Players buy tickets and on those tickets write their name, phone number and the number of one of the cards on the display board. The bar then randomly picks a ticket and turns over the card with the number corresponding to the ticket. If that card is the Queen of Hearts, the person who owns the ticket wins. For an amazing 50 weeks, the Queen stayed hidden.
Before the drawing on Wednesday, July 9, the lines to buy tickets stretched for blocks, some people waiting in line for hours just for the opportunity to be part of the dream. Because of the overflow of demand, the owner of Brookie’s, Darrin Brookbank, shut down all ticket sales on the preceding Monday, then saw the lines explode on Tuesday and Wednesday and on that July 9 evening, the Ripley downtown was again overflowing with people and traffic, causing Brookbank and village officials to declare that drawings would continue until there was a winner.
The influx of the reporting of the city news channels had made the crowds even larger, region-wide, almost too much to control and with construction scheduled to begin soon in the downtown Ripley area, the drawing began with a winner in sight. The first two names that were drawn from the hopper did not have the numbers that revealed the Queen and they each received $5,000 prizes. The next name drawn was 69 year-old Ron Lang from Georgetown, who had chosen the number 50 on his ticket. When Brookbank revealed the card under the number 50, it was the Queen of Hearts and Lang had become an instant millionaire, a pretty good payout after standing in line for eight hours over the previous two days and buying nearly $3,000 worth of tickets altogether.
As the winner, Lang receives 90% of the jackpot with Brookie’s keeping 10% to start a new jackpot drawing. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with the money, but I’ll put it to good use,” Lang told WCPO.
For those wondering when the next Queen of Hearts drawing will begin, Brookbank commented, “Give me a month.”
