The Christmas El Gordo lottery (The Fat One) is the most long-established lotto draw in Spain with the vast percentage of the country’s inhabitants taking part. Believe it or not, this draw has grown to be a national diversion with 98% of Spain’s citizens playing. This is not really that remarkable when you hear that the El Gordo is the biggest prize fund lottery game worldwide.

The average Spanish citizen spends about €73 in the Christmas draw and in 2008 the prize fund topped a massive €2.20 billion. Here are a number of important features of the El Gordo lottery:

Spanish National Lottery

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

Ever since December 1812 the Christmas lottery has operated in precisely the same manner year on year. Two large spherical vessels 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 (previously reserved for orphans of public servants) draw the numbers and corresponding prizes, singing the results aloud to the huge Madrid crowd while Spanish national TV and radio stations air the event.

Due to the sheer quantity of numbers and prizes this process takes roughly 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 El Gordo lottery draw. Those who do not win frequently make the typical remark that “it’s health that really matters”. Participants who just get their money back will frequently re-invest the winnings 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 procedure of drawing the numbers in Spanish lotteries but this system is now set aside only for the legendary Christmas lotto draw. The rest of the weekly and 5 other yearly El Gordo lottery draws operate using five containers with 10 balls in each, from where the winning numbers are picked.

Lotto retailers in Spain typically only sell tickets for one or two numbers, so the winners of the biggest prizes frequently reside in the same town or district or work for the same corporation. In 2005, the winning number was sold in the town of Vic in Catalonia (population 37,825), whose citizens scooped in the region of €500 million.

Traditionally, you could only play the El Gordo lottery if you were a Spanish citizen. However, with the introduction of lottery ticket sales agents you are now able to participate in this internationally renowned Spanish national lottery regardless of where you live globally. Some global El Gordo syndicates have also been set up to not only allow more people access to this lotto draw but to enhance their chances of collecting cash prizes too.