Spanish Lotto
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by: Gene Koprowski.
Thousands of ticket holders in Spain -- and all over the world via the Internet -- today were greeted with an early Christmas present, as the Spanish lottery paid out more than two billion Euros in prize money.


Approximately four in five Spanish residents bought tickets for the annual Christmas lottery known as "El Gordo" or "The Fat One."

"El Gordo" is a Christmas tradition in Spain dating back to 1812. It is designed to give as many people as possible a windfall just before the holidays.

A whopping 70 percent of the intake goes back into cash prizes -- far more than in other state-run lotteries used to finance social projects. Lottery specialists rank "El Gordo" as the world's richest for the total sum paid out.

Rather than a few jackpots, there are millions of cash prizes starting from 20-Euros.
Sales were at 2.78 billion Euros -- approximately $3.90 billion dollars -- and the total prize money on offer was up 100 million Euros from 2007 at around 2.32 billion Euros.

Spanish customers huddled around TVs and radios in bars, living rooms and offices to check their ticket numbers.
Kids from the San Ildefonso school, a former orphanage, dressed in their best clothes, announced the winning numbers in a Gregorian chant, a form of praise song from the Roman Catholic Church.

The winning number this year was 32365, of which 195 "series" of tickets, each worth three million Euros, were bought in eight regions of Spain, including Madrid and Barcelona, and overseas via the Internet.
Every person with a 20-Euro ticket -- corresponding to one-tenth of one of the 195 "series" -- will win 300,000 Euros.


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Among the big Internet winners were two men from Bangladesh living in the northeastern city of Barcelona, Jamal Sahid and Shalim Ahmed. Sahid, 18, a cook, told reporters he planned to open a restaurant with his 300,000 Euro winnings.
One bar in Barcelona which sold 30 of the winning tickets offered free drinks to all customers, forcing police to close off the street as hundreds of people descended on the facility.

Tickets go on sale in July. Co-workers, friends and relatives across the country pitch in to buy them together, and cafes and bars sell shares in their tickets to their clients.
Spanish households dedicate about two percent of their budget to lottery tickets and other forms of gambling, one of the highest rates in Europe.

Since 2005 tickets have also been sold over the Internet, drawing customers from Europe, Asia and the Americas.


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