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How The El Gordo Lottery Works

The El Gordo (The Fat One) Christmas lottery is the most traditional lottery game in Spain with the large majority of the country’s inhabitants participating. Believe it or not, this draw has turned out to be a national activity with 98% of Spain’s population taking part. This is not really unexpected when you consider that the El Gordo is the largest prize fund lotto game worldwide.

The average Spaniard spends roughly €73 in the Christmas draw and in 2008 the prize fund is estimated to top a staggering €2.20 billion. Here are a number of major features of the El Gordo lottery:

• More than 13,000 prizes are paid out.
• It is operated by the Spanish Government.
• There is an outstanding 1 in 6 chance of grabbing a cash prize.
• All prizes are paid out at once and are tax-free for Spanish residents.
• 70% of the money brought in by the sale of tickets is paid out in cash prizes.

Since way back in December 1812 this Spanish lottery game has followed exactly the same procedure every year. Two huge sphere-shaped containers are used; one of them contains tens of thousands of small wooden balls representing all ticket numbers; the other one contains fewer wooden balls representing the prizes to be drawn. In the Lotería Nacional hall in Madrid, pupils of the San Ildefonso School (formerly reserved for orphans of public servants) draw the numbers and corresponding prizes, singing the results aloud to the huge Madrid crowd while both Spanish national television and radio broadcast the event.

Due to the vast amount of numbers and prizes in the El Gordo, this procedure takes about 3 hours to complete. In recent years, in excess of 4,800 individual numbers have won no less than €1,000 per billete (€100 per décimo) in the Christmas draw. Those individuals who are not fortunate enough to win a cash prize frequently come out with the typical remark that "it's health that really matters". Individuals who just recoup their entry fee will frequently re-invest the prize in a ticket for El Niño, the second most important draw, which takes place on the 6th of January each year.

The two container arrangement is the traditional procedure of drawing the numbers in Spanish lotteries but this approach is now reserved exclusively for the legendary Christmas lottery draw. The rest of the weekly and 5 other yearly El Gordo draws utilize five containers with ten balls in each, from where the winning numbers are selected.

Lotto shops in Spain usually only sell tickets for one or two numbers, so the winners of the biggest prizes often reside in the same city or neighbourhood or work for the same corporation. In 2005, the winning number was sold in the town of Vic in Catalonia (population 37,825), whose inhabitants shared approximately €500 million.

Historically, you could only participate in the El Gordo lottery if you were a Spanish citizen. However, with the introduction of lottery ticket sales agents you now have the opportunity to partake in this globally celebrated Spanish lottery regardless of where you reside in the world. Some worldwide El Gordo syndicates have also been introduced to not only allow more people access to this lottery but to improve their chances of collecting cash prizes also.