"El Gordo" Spanish Lottery

18 Dec 2011

This week Spaniards are getting ready for not just Christmas but also for the big Christmas lottery--which will be announced on Thursday.

Spaniards are crazy about the Christmas lottery.

Some people start buying their tickets in July or August. There are also people who will drive for hours to get a ticket from just the right place--usually places that have a history of winning the lottery. There are two sites in particular--a small town in Huesca and a booth in Madrid--that are viewed as being the luckiest. These places aren't so much lucky as a lot of people buy their tickets there. So there is a higher probability that the winning ticket will come from one of these sites.

There are number of prizes drawn--from as small as 20 euro to "el gordo" (the fat one). "El gordo" is the biggest prize of all--this year totaling 720 million euros!

The day that the lottery is drawn is jokingly referred to as el Día de Salud (the day of health). Everyone gets so excited that they might win the lottery (however improbable). When they don't win, people say that at least they have their health.

On Thursday, Spaniards will tune into the televised airing of the lottery drawing. Children from a school for economically-disadvantaged children sing out the prizes and the winning numbers. It's customary for the winner to give a gift of some sort (around 6,000 euros) to the child who calls out their number.
 in honor of the baby Jesus.
Though the Christmas lottery is the largest lottery for the year, there is also the lottery drawing for Epiphany called "El Niño" in honor of the baby Jesus.