Latest news Christmas lottery "El Gordo" launched in Spain
Spain's world-famous Christmas lottery "El Gordo" (The Big One), worth more than 2.7 billion euros this year, began this morning in Madrid's Teatro Real opera house. In keeping with tradition, pupils from the San Ildefonso boarding school in Madrid sang out the first winning numbers. Spanish television RTVE is broadcasting the long-awaited and usually hour-long spectacle live, with around 400 viewers following the drawing of the lucky numbers directly in the opera house, according to the broadcaster.
22.12.2024, 09:29
SDA
An audience of millions is also likely to gather in front of the television. Most tickets are sold in Spain, but more and more foreigners are also taking part online. Two days before Christmas Eve, the lottery pays out prizes totaling more than 2.7 billion euros. That is 112 million more than in the previous year. The lottery, which was launched more than 200 years ago, is considered to be the oldest in the world and is known as the largest raffle on the planet due to the total amount played out, which increases every year.
The top prize, known as "El Gordo" (the big one), is four million euros for a whole ticket. It will be paid out 193 times this year - eight times more than last year, as each of the 100,000 ticket numbers is sold just as often. The cash prize corresponds to 70 percent of this year's sales revenue of 3.86 billion.
There are two lottery drums. The first, larger drum contains 100,000 wooden balls with the ticket numbers, while the second contains a good 1,800 wooden balls with the winning amounts. During the draw, two balls always fall out of the two drums into a glass bowl at the same time. The ceremony always takes at least three hours, as many smaller prizes are also drawn.
