McHenry VFW Queen of Hearts game has a winner who gets half of $2.5M pot

The card was hiding in the No. 34 envelope, and someone is starting 2025 $1.27 million richer – before taxes.

After rolling over for more than 80 weeks, the McHenry Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 4600 Queen of Hearts game ended on New Year’s Eve. The winner, identified only as Jim K., picked the right card of the 10 left uncovered in the game.

The pot had risen to just over $2.5 million since the last time the queen of hearts card showed her face May 9, 2023.

The large pot brought packed houses to the McHenry VFW hall for the past few months, Post Cmdr. Michael Kinnerk said.

“This was the biggest, with the number of people in the building. It will slow down considerably now,” Kinnerk said.

It also was the first time the winning card was found on New Year’s Eve.

One indication of crowd size is the number of Blue Raffle tickets sold. That 50/50 game, where the VFW disperses half the cash of tickets bought that week up to $500 per ticket, had 23 people taking home $499 each Tuesday. That means the VFW sold about $23,000 in Blue Raffle tickets in the past week.

The rising attendance on game night meant some changes for the kitchen, said Mike Miller, president of the VFW’s board of directors. The hall went to a limited menu to prevent an almost 60-minute wait for food, he said.

Now that the game is over, the McHenry VFW can start looking at how to spend its portion of the earnings. The veterans organization keeps 40% of the pot.

Plans include a “great big flagpole” at the VFW’s entrance on Route 120, where a gazebo sits now, Miller said. Smaller flags will honor all U.S. military branches.

In the years since the VFW began the game, it has paid for updated heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems; a complete renovation of the parking lot; the outdoor beer garden; and more. The VFW also has made a donation to other veteran nonprofit groups with funds raised by the game, Kinnerk said.

He hopes to soon make a proposal to the VFW board and the city of McHenry that would place solar panels at the VFW. He is looking at a solar array that looks almost flower-like, and that follows the sun across the sky.

Future plans for the Queen of Hearts funds also include a renovation of the meeting hall. Ben Keefe had a vision to remodel the room with higher ceilings and to make it feel more like a banquet room, Miller said.

Keefe, the former FVW commander and co-founder of the Queen of Hearts game, died unexpectedly on Labor Day.

A new Queen of Hearts game, with a brand-new 54-card deck, starts next Tuesday with a $393,928 pot. That number is 10% of the final pot plus tickets sold in the past week.

The game went past 54 weeks – the number of cards in the deck including jokers – because both jokers were picked as of Feb. 13. A new deck of cards began Feb. 20.

Larry Cannon has been emceeing the weekly drawing since Keefe’s death. He reminded players who have won in the Blue Raffle, and at least one person who pulled a joker or any of the other queens in the deck, to please cash their checks.