Ladies of Luck Defy Odds at Red Cross Ball Drop

The odds of an amateur golfer hitting a hole-in-one is roughly 1 in 13,000. The odds of two hole-in-ones in the same round is about 1 in 9,500,000. While not exactly the same thing, what happened Friday afternoon was just as rare.

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Barbara Jones runs a business predicated on probability.

"Insurance is chance," said Jones. "You're buying a product. You're taking a chance you're going to use it and the insurance company is taking a chance you're not going to use it. Sometimes they win, sometimes you do."

With every opportunity, Jones and her sister Susan Edwards will always take a chance on charity, even with the odds stacked against them. 

"I forgot to tell her that I had bought tickets," said Edwards. "She got an email one day and she said 'what in the world have you done now?' I said I bought us some tickets so we could win some prizes."

"I paid for them," said Jones. "She just bought them. Just goes to show you, if you buy into these charity events that are doing these drawings, anybody can win."

On Friday, 'anybody' was actually one person.

Out of 2,000 balls as part of the Red Cross Ball Drop, the pair found lady luck twice. Two out of the12 balls they purchased landed in the cup. 

Sometimes you don't realize how lucky you are until it hits you in the face, especially when you consider neither one of them were there to see it.

"The Red Cross called today and she said Barbara won two," said Edwards. "She was a little shocked, especially when I told her there were two."

"When she came in with a piece of paper, she said she had something to tell me," said Jones. "But I'm not going to tell you until you can say I can go. I said, well it depends on what it is and where we're going."

The prizes included a resort vacation and a one-thousand dollar jewelry shopping spree. Jones much of a golfer before. Maybe she will be now.

"I'm not very good at it," said Jones. "I like to drive the cart and drink beer. That's my idea of a good time."

Despite their odds-defying win, these ladies of luck will never forget the reason.

"This is a game of chance too," said Jones. "Anytime you have these charity drawings, it's not throwing money away. It's giving that money to them. If there are prizes, so be it. I do don't do it for the prizes, I do it to give to them."

For these two Henderson businesswomen, chances are, they won't need odds where they're going.

"I'm telling you, come January, we'll have 20-feet of snow on the ground and it's going to be 10 degrees below," said Jones. "I'm going to be sitting on St. James Bay!"