MADRID — For weeks, Spaniards had anticipated the arrival of “El Gordo” or “The Fats One.”
However not like Santa Claus, El Gordo arrived three days earlier than Christmas, earlier than midday on Sunday.
El Gordo is the primary prize of Spain’s massively in style nationwide Christmas lottery, which is alleged to be the world’s largest based mostly on the whole prize cash concerned, although different lotteries have bigger single prizes. This 12 months’s draw will unfold riches totaling 2.7 billion euros (round $2.8 billion), a lot of it in small winnings.
A number of ticket holders with the quantity 72480 received the highest prize, value 400,000 euros (roughly $417,000) earlier than taxes. The successful tickets had been offered in Logroño, a metropolis in northern Spain’s La Rioja area that’s recognized for its wines.
A number of tickets with the identical quantity might be offered to completely different teams and full tickets are divisible into 10 components. Shopping for and sharing these fractions, recognized in Spanish as “décimos” or tenths, is a well-liked custom within the run-up to Christmas. Households, pals, and associates usually participate, normally spending 20 euros (about $21) every.
On Sunday, younger college students from Madrid’s San Ildefonso faculty chosen the numbers from two revolving orbs within the capital’s Teatro Actual opera home and sang them out in flip for practically 5 hours in a cadence acquainted to Spaniards. After “El Gordo” was introduced, viewers members — some wearing costume as Don Quijote, Christmas elves, Biblical sensible males and the lottery itself — started streaming out of the venue, from which the occasion was televised nationally.
María Ángeles, a instructor from the southwestern province of Badajoz, mentioned she waited for hours in line to get a seat contained in the opera home to look at the occasion with a bunch of 14 family and friends members that she traveled with to Madrid.
“The purpose of coming to see the lottery is the hope,” Ángeles mentioned. She reckoned nobody in her group received greater than 140 euros ($146).
The lottery works on the premise of distributing essentially the most successful numbers to the biggest variety of folks attainable. There are lots of of small prizes and 13 main ones, together with the “El Gordo” winner.
Within the weeks main as much as the draw, traces type exterior lottery places of work, particularly these with a historical past of promoting prize-winning tickets in earlier years.
Spain’s Dec. 22 Christmas lottery started throughout the Napoleonic wars in 1812 and has continued largely with out interruption since then, even throughout the Spanish Civil Battle. College students from the San Ildefonso faculty have been singing the prizes because the begin.
Spain’s nationwide lottery was first established as a charity in 1763 by the Bourbon monarch King Carlos III. It was later used to shore up state coffers. At present, it helps numerous charities.
