El Gordo, which translates to 'The Fat One', is a Spanish Christmas lottery. It holds the distinction of being the biggest and one of the oldest lotteries in the world, which came into existence in 1812. The Spaniards love this lottery to the core and as the name suggests the draw happens around Christmas on 22nd December. Its popularity can be imagined by the fact that 90% of the country’s population owns at least a portion of a ticket every year.
How Is Spanish Christmas Different?
This Spanish lottery works differently as compared to most of the other lotteries in the world. The draw happens only once a year and the tickets go on sale in the summer. A ticket costs almost INR 20,000, which is considered too expensive in Spain. But, this lottery has the option of buying 'shares' of the full amount and most people are fine buying ‘decimos’, which is 1/10th of the full share for INR 1963.
There are 160 series in this lottery and each series has its own jackpot prize of INR 31.4 crore. As each of these series has sets of tickets numbered from 00000 to 99999, it means 160 people can have the same ticket number and thus there will be 160 jackpot winners each getting INR 31.4 crore to have a blast at Christmas.
The odds of winning this jackpot stands at 1 in 100,000, which are much better than any other lottery of similar size where they generally stand at 1 in 100,000,000. Along with jackpots, there are nearly 15,000 smaller prizes. The total prize money pool is nearly INR 18065 crore, which is more money than any other lottery in the world.
If you want to participate in the official Spanish Christmas lottery, you have to be a Spanish resident. If you get disheartened by hearing this, you don’t need to be. The world leader of online platforms for jackpot results and casino games, Lottoland offers a better alternative for its players. It offers its registered players to bet on the results of the Spanish Christmas lottery using the same numbers. It keeps all conditions the same, as the same odds for the same prizes and allows its players to buy a partial ticket, which can be as less as 1/100th portion of the total ticket. The ticket cost on this portal is less than what a Spaniard pays. At Lottoland, you get a decimos for INR 1570.
Spanish Christmas Lottery is loved by Spaniards and now people other than Spaniards can also participate in it through Lottoland portal. It's like an annual tradition for the people of Spain when millions of them make sure that they pick up at least one (if not many) ticket while running errands and holiday shopping. The sale starts quite early in the year and once they buy their tickets, they eagerly wait for the draw day. On the D day, big screens are erected and families and friends hold El Gordo parties to watch the draw, which takes several hours to complete.
