‘El Gordo’ lottery in Spain spreads Christmas riches worth $2.8 billion

MADRID (AP) — Spaniards had been awaiting the arrival of “El Gordo,” or “The Fat One,” for weeks.

But unlike Santa Claus, El Gordo arrived before noon on Sunday, three days before Christmas.

El Gordo is the first prize of Spain’s hugely popular national Christmas lottery, which is said to be the largest in the world by total prize money, although other lotteries have larger single prizes. A total of 2.7 billion euros (about $2.8 billion) of wealth will be distributed in this year’s draw, mostly from small winnings.

Holders of ticket number 72480 won the first prize of 400,000 euros (approximately $417,000) before taxes. The winning tickets were sold in Logroño, a city in the La Rioja region of northern Spain famous for its wines.

Multiple tickets with the same number can be sold to different groups and full tickets can be divided into 10 pieces. Buying and sharing these fractions, known as “décimos” or tenths in Spanish, is a popular tradition in the run-up to Christmas. Families, friends and co-workers often attend and typically spend 20 euros (about $21) each.

On Sunday, young students from Madrid’s San Ildefonso school picked numbers from two rotating globes at the capital’s Teatro Real opera house and took turns singing them for nearly five hours in a rhythm familiar to Spaniards. After “El Gordo” was announced, spectators, some wearing costumes such as Don Quixote, Christmas elves, Biblical wise men and the lottery itself, began to stream from the venue, where the event was nationally televised.

María Ángeles, a teacher from the southwestern province of Badajoz, said she waited in line for hours to get a seat at the opera house to watch the event with a group of 14 friends and family members with whom she had traveled to Madrid.

“The point of coming to see the lottery is hope,” Ángeles said. He estimated that no one in his group earned more than 140 euros ($146).

The lottery works on the principle of distributing the winning numbers to as many people as possible. There are hundreds of smaller prizes and 13 grand prizes, including the “El Gordo” winner.

In the weeks before the draw, queues form in front of lottery offices, which have a history of selling prize-winning tickets, especially in previous years.

Spain’s December 22 Christmas lottery began during the Napoleonic wars in 1812 and has continued largely uninterrupted since then, even during the Spanish Civil War. Pupils of the San Ildefonso school have been singing about the awards from the beginning.

Spain’s national lottery was first established in 1763 by the Bourbon monarch King George III. It was founded as a charitable organization by Carlos. It was later used to bolster state coffers. Today he supports various charities.