Spanish Christmas Lottery

The Spanish Christmas Lottery ("Sorteo de Navidad" or "Lotería de Navidad") is a national lottery game organized every year since 1812 by a branch of the Spanish Public Administration, now called "Loterías y Apuestas del Estado". The name "Sorteo de Navidad" was used for the first time in 1892. As measured by the total prize payout, the Christmas Lottery is considered the biggest lottery worldwide. In 2006, if all of the tickets were sold, the total amount payout of prizes would be worth more than €2.142 billion (70% of ticket sales). The total amount of all prizes of the first category called "El Gordo" ("the big one") was €540,000,000 which was distributed among 180 winning tickets ("billetes") that won €3,000,000 each.

The ticket numbers

The Christmas Lottery is based on tickets which have 5-digit numbers, just like the regular drawing of the Spanish national lottery. Due to the enormous popularity of the game, each set of numbers on each of the tickets is sold multiple times, in several so-called "series". Moreover, since an entire ticket (called "billete") is quite expensive, the tickets are usually sold as tenths (called "décimos"). On a private basis, or through associations and other organizations, it is also possible to buy or be given even smaller participations of one ticket. Usually, the price of those participations is incremented by a supplement that is paid as a donation to the intermediary organization.

The exact quantity of tickets and series, as well as their price and the exact distribution of prizes, may be different each year. For example, in 2004, there were exactly 66,000 different numbers in 195 series. In 2005, there were 85,000 numbers in 170 series, whereas in 2006 the number of series was increased to 180. The price of an entire ticket ("billete") was 200 euro, a tenth ("décimo") was 20 euro.

According to reports in the press, about 98% of all Spanish people hold at least a small participation of a lottery ticket in the Christmas Lottery each year, even if they do not gamble during the rest of the year (this includes tickets purchased or received as a gift or exchanged with family and acquaintances). Recently, tickets may be available each year as early as August.Lotería Nacional thus expects to pick on the superstition of holidaymakers who may feel they are in a "lucky place".

The draw

Since December 18, 1812, the Christmas Lottery drawings are held according to exactly the same procedure each year. Two big spherical vessels are used. One of them contains several 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 of Madrid, pupils of the San Ildefonso school (formerly reserved for orphans of public servants) draw the numbers and corresponding prizes, "singing" the results aloud in front of the public, while Televisión Española and Radio Nacional de España broadcast. Due to the sheer number of numbers and prizes, this procedure takes about 3 hours. In recent years, more than 4,800 individual numbers won at least €1,000 per "billete" (€100 per "décimo"). The probability of winning some prize is roughly 15%.Those who lost will make the commonplace comment that "it's health what really matters".Players who just get their money back will often re-invest the prize in a ticket for "El Niño", the second most important draw, held before the feast of Epiphany of Jesus (January 6).

The two-vessels system was the traditional one in Spanish lottery, but now is only used in the Christmas extraordinary .The rest of weekly and extraordinary draws along the year use five vessels with ten balls each, from where the five figures of the winning number are extracted.

El Gordo

The climax of the drawing is the moment in which the "Gordo" is drawn (in 2006, 3 million euros for each of the 180 "billetes" (or €300,000 for each of the 1800 "décimos") sold with the winning number). Lottery outlets usually only sell tickets for one or two numbers, so the winners of the largest prizes often live in the same town or area or work for the same company. In 2005, the winning number was sold in the town of Vic in Catalonia (population 37,825), whose inhabitants shared about 500 million euro (€300,000 per winning "décimo"). In 2006, the winning number was sold in eight different lottery outlets across Spain, [http://navidadlae.terra.es/t_lae/seguimiento/premioPorPoblacion.aspx?numero=20297&orden=PGP] while the second prize number (€100,000 per "décimo") was only ever sold from a kiosk on the Puerta del Sol in central Madrid. [http://navidadlae.terra.es/t_lae/seguimiento/premioPorPoblacion.aspx?numero=37368&orden=STP]

As a misconception in many non-Spanish speaking countries, it is often assumed that the term "El Gordo" is specific for the Christmas Lottery; some even think that "El Gordo" is in fact the name of the lottery. However, the real meaning of "El Gordo" is simply "the first prize" (literally "the fat one" or more accurately "the big one"); other lotteries have their "Gordo" as well. To add to the confusion, there is a relatively new weekly Spanish lottery game called "El Gordo de la Primitiva", which has nothing in common with the Christmas lottery, except the fact that it is organized by the Spanish public lottery entity Loterías y Apuestas del Estado.

Scams

The Spanish law enforcement agencies routinely issue warnings to foreign punters against buying lottery from so-called authorised dealers advertising in the foreign press. Lottery tickets should only be bought from the numerous official establishments found in every Spanish town. A "décimo" (tenth) ticket costs 20 euro. If a ticket dealer asks for 25 euro or more, then something must be wrong with his or her business.

External links

* [http://www.madrid-guide-spain.com/el-gordo.html (English) Spanish Christmas lottery culture, prizes and timings]
* [http://www.elpais.com/articulo/espana/timo/global/euromillon/elpepuesp/20071105elpepinac_13/Tes "El timo global 'del euromillón'" (Spanish) An article in the paper El Mundo dated 5 November 2007 on a scam about the El Gordo prize for the Loterie de la Navidad. Accessed on 8 November 2007.]