typicallyspanish.com

Editorials
+ Larger Font | + Smaller Font
Lady Luck is in the maths
By h.b. - Dec 7, 2007 - 12:17 AM
ALSO SEE : • Villena woman wins cruise for 100 friends - Sep 18, 2008 - 8:30 AM
• National Lottery takes five million Euro to Elche - Sep 15, 2008 - 7:21 AM

The 'bombo' which will be full of the wooden numbered balls on December 22 - Photo EFE
enlarge photo

The Christmas Lottery in Spain is as much about tradition as is the Cava
EDITORIAL COMMENT

One of the main events of the Spanish Christmas is El Gordo – the fat one – the Christmas lottery which is drawn on December 22. The children from the San Idefonso college will sing the numbers, as they do each year, and for a few hours the country will come to a partial halt as people watch the television or listen to the radio as the numbers are called.

They say there are lies, damn lies and statistics and if you are thinking of buying a decimo for 20 € this year, and remember if you don’t buy a ticket you can’t win, but here are some of the mathematical facts for this year’s draw.

You have a 1 in 10 chance of getting your stake money back, and a 1 in 20 chance of making a profit, as only 13,334 numbers of the 85,000 inside the huge golden bombo will be numbers winning some sort of prize.

This year sees 185 series with 85,000 tickets in each series and that means that 13,334 numbers of each series will get some winnings returned, even if it is only the stake money.

The Spanish will spend 3.245 billion € on tickets this year, of which 2.201 billion € will be returned as prize money.

But truth be told very few people have done the math. El Gordo is part of the Spanish Christmas traditions, as much part of the festivities as the cava or the langostinos. It was back in the reign of Carlos III in 1763 when the first Spanish lottery took place. In those days players had to choose five numbers from a choice of 90.

Back to the current day, and the mathematicians do give one tip, but don’t ask me to explain it… Apparently it is better to buy ten decimos of different numbers than a single whole ticket.

¡Buena suerte!


 smartphone/pda/iphone |  email this article |  printer friendly page

 del.icio.us |  digg |  technorati |  yahoo | Stumble It!
Facebook | Reddit | Newsvine | Meneame | Wikio | Blink

ALSO SEE :
• Villena woman wins cruise for 100 friends - Sep 18, 2008 - 8:30 AM
• National Lottery takes five million Euro to Elche - Sep 15, 2008 - 7:21 AM
• Third largest Gordo Primitiva lottery win ever goes to Pilar de la Horadada - Sep 8, 2008 - 8:18 AM
• Lottery seller searches for lucky ONCE winner in Elche - Sep 5, 2008 - 7:31 AM
• 40 residents of Yecla share ONCE lottery win - Jul 29, 2008 - 6:39 AM
• Nigerian lottery scam sent 25,000 letters every day - May 30, 2008 - 7:40 AM
• 50 arrests against Málaga lottery scam - May 29, 2008 - 8:09 AM
• Canary Islands hit the jackpot in biggest ever Primitiva lottery win in Spain - Mar 17, 2008 - 6:01 PM
• Nigerian lottery letter scam broken up in Málaga - Feb 17, 2008 - 9:05 PM
• Another big lottery win in Granada province - Feb 7, 2008 - 4:56 PM
• Granada ticket wins 76.6 million Euro in the Eurolottery - Jan 26, 2008 - 9:11 AM