History
Spain's world famous lottery 'El Gordo' is celebrated on December 22
By h.b.
Dec 21, 2008 - 1:39 PM

December 22nd is the day of the year when the Spanish people are, from nine in the morning, with one ear pegged to the radio or television as the world famous Christmas Lottery, ‘El Gordo’ – The Fat One, takes place.

It is always the children, now the boys and the girls from the San Ildefonso School in Madrid, who have the honour of singing out the numbers as they are drawn.

Tickets usually sold in tenth parts called decimos, are held tightly in hand with each member of the public considering that certain numbers to be more attractive than others, and certain last numbers as their favourite.

For example the favourite terminations are 3,5,and 7 while the numbers which have most appeared over the history of the lottery are 5,4,and 6.

This form of lottery was declared to be modern when sold for the first time on March 4th 1812 in Cádiz, to differentiate it from the earlier draw in Spain which dates from 1,763. The first Christmas draw was also held in 1812 when a ticket cost 40 reales and the first prize was 8,000 pesos Fuertes.

The hall where the draw takes place opens its doors at 8am so that anyone can check the wooden balls, each one of them with a single and possibly winning number etched upon it.

The average Spaniard has spent some 72 € on the draw, only slightly less than last year despite the economic crisis. Much of this is spent in smaller ‘participaciones’ arranged in their workplace or among clubs and friends. Final figures for sales this year show they are down 2.79% on last year, which is 80.12 million € less. Most money has been staked in Madrid and Cataluña, followed by Valencia and Andalucía.

As there are only 85,000 numbers on the tickets, there are also many series of tickets with the same number, and as a single number is often limited geographically by its sale one of the most exciting aspects of the Spanish draw is that lady luck can make several people from the same town or village into multi millionaires at the same time.

This year there are 195 series, each one with 85,000 tickets, numbered from 000000 to 84,999 and each ticket has 10 decimos. Each decimo costs 20 €, and a complete number 39,000 €.

Strangely the number marking the date of the Barajas air tragedy has been one of the most popular numbers this year, and numbers ending in 13, 69 or 666 are also always in demand.

70% of the money taken goes on prizes, the rest on administration and to the treasury. The chances of winning more than your stake money back are just 5.68%.
Top prize for a tenth of a ticket is 300,000 € in each of the 195 series. 2.31 billion € will be given in prizes this year.

Some provinces of Spain have never won the first prize in the Christmas Draw – they are Orense, Zamora, Salamanca, Ávila, Tarragona and Huelva.