The Confusing And Exciting El Gordo Lottery

24/11/2008 by admin.

The El Gordo (The Fat One) Christmas lotto is the most traditional lottery game in Spain with the vast majority of the country’s population participating.  Believe it or not, this draw has become a national diversion with 98% of Spain’s citizens playing.  This is not really remarkable when you consider that the El Gordo lottery is the biggest prize fund lotto game worldwide.
 
The typical Spanish citizen spends approximately 73 Euros in the Christmas draw and in 2008 the prize fund is expected to exceed a staggering €2.20 billion.  Here are a number of important features of the El Gordo lottery:
 
· In excess of 13,000 prizes are paid out.
· It is operated by the Spanish Government.
· There is an exceptional 1 in 6 likelihood of winning a cash prize.
· All prizes are paid out straight away and are tax-free for Spain’s citizens.
· 70% of total ticket sales are paid out in prize money.
 
Since December 1812 this Spanish lottery game is operated according to exactly the same procedure each year.  Two big circular vessels are used; one of them contains tens of thousands of small wooden balls representing all ticket numbers; the other one contains a smaller amount of wooden balls representing the prizes to be drawn. In the Lotería Nacional hall in Madrid, students of the San Ildefonso School (formerly reserved for orphans of public servants) draw the numbers and corresponding prizes, singing the results aloud to the considerable on looking crowd while Spanish radio and television stations transmit the occasion. 

Due to the sheer amount of numbers and prizes, this process takes approximately 3 hours to complete.  In recent years, more than 4,800 individual numbers have won no less than €1,000 per billete (€100 per décimo) in the Christmas draw.  Those who do not win time and again make the predictable remark that “it’s health that really matters”. Individuals who just get their money back 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 vessel system is the time-honoured method of drawing the numbers in Spanish lotteries but this method is now kept exclusively for the legendary Christmas lotto draw.  The remainder of the weekly draws as well as the five other yearly El Gordo draws operate using five vessels with 10 balls in each, from where the winning numbers are selected.

Lottery retailers in Spain usually only sell tickets for one or two numbers, so the winners of the largest prizes often live in the same town 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 residents shared approximately €500 million.

Traditionally, you could only take part in the El Gordo if you were a citizen of Spain.  However, with the introduction of lottery ticket sales agents you now have the chance to take part in this world famous Spanish national lottery regardless of where you live globally.  Some international El Gordo syndicates have also been established to not only allow more people access to this lottery but to boost their likelihood of collecting cash prizes as well.

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