Man picks queen of hearts at Caseyville raffle, wins more than $450,000

Orlando Fridge spent $15 on tickets for the Queen of Hearts raffle, a drawing held by the Caseyville VFW Memorial Post 1117.

Once his name was called Wednesday night, it took the East St. Louis resident less than a minute to work his way through the packed crowd and onto the stage; there, he would choose the queen of hearts out of six remaining cards, winning the jackpot estimated at $484,960.

“Put it in the bank,” he said when asked what he would do with his winnings. “... I’m going to put it up.”

John Fischer, VFW senior commander, said this weekslong event would not have been possible without the organization’s auxiliary members — volunteers who are people are related to combat veterans.

“They are the most faithful group of people I’ve ever seen my entire life,” he said. “They are just a well-oiled machine that works so wonderfully.”

Tom Clark, the post commander, echoed those sentiments. He said the event was also made possible by about 20 of the organization’s retired volunteers, who put in up to 12 hours of work a day — every day — to make the raffle happen.

“The VFW makes a majority of its funds through beverage sales,” Clark said. “The Queen of Hearts raffle is actually self-funding. We only actually keep 10 percent.”

He said that 10 percent pays for things such as more than $1,000 worth of raffle tickets a week, $500 for a tent every week and $265 a week for port-a-potties.

“Plus, if there’s any left at the end of the week, that will be the seed money to start our next queen,” he said.

When asked when that would be, Clark laughed.

“That is a good question, we are crispy crittered right now,” the post commander said. “Probably in a couple of weeks.”

This story was originally published April 26, 2017 at 11:21 PM with the headline "Man picks queen of hearts at Caseyville raffle, wins more than $450,000."