Spain’s Christmas lottery spreads $2.8B worth of holiday cheer
Spain’s 200-year-old holiday lottery “The Fat One” delivered a hefty prize again this year, with over $2.8 billion in prizes warbled out by school children and watched live around the world.
The annual drawing for “El Gordo” took place on Sunday at Teatro Real, the country’s preeminent opera house in the capital Madrid.
Unlike many lotteries, there is no single jackpot, and the winnings are distributed among thousands of people in via a complex system. Across the country, families, colleagues and friends often participate by pooling their money together to buy tickets.
Multiple tickets with the same number can be sold, and shops usually only sell one or two numbers, meaning those who win the largest prizes often live in the same area.
El Gordo is held annually on Dec. 22, and is a key part of the Christmas season in Spain offering one of the largest lottery prize pools in the world. Organized by the Spanish government, it originated in 1812 during the Napoleonic Wars with the drawing watched live on national television and live-streamed globally.
On Sunday, the top prize of 400,000 euros ($416,588) was won by several ticket holders with the number 72480 bought in the northern city of Logroño, the capital of the La Rioja region, according to the El Gordo’s official website.
The second prize amounted to 125,000 euros ($130,184) and the third 50,000 euros ($52,073).
As is customary, there were lively celebrations across the country after winners were announced, with some popping bottles of Prosecco surrounded by friends and family.
The drawing began at 9 a.m. (3 a.m. ET), with groups of people from towns and cities across the country gathering to watch.
Students aged between 8 and 14 from San Ildefonso, a primary school that dates back more than 500 years, revealed the winners by singing the numbers and the corresponding prize amounts, which are drawn from wooden balls.
Tickets are printed and sold in series, meaning players buy pre-printed tickets with numbers they did not personally choose.
The number of series changes each year, and in 2024, each number had 193 copies, meaning that many people shared the same winning ticket number, according to the official website.
Most of the winners in 2024 were from Spain’s capital, Madrid, according to the El Gordo website.
Players can choose to buy two types of tickets: either a full ticket, called a billete, which costs €200 ($208), or a décimo, costing €20 (nearly $21), which is a tenth of the size.
It is common for groups of people to split the cost of a billete to play as part of a syndicate, due to the high cost, according to the El Gordo website.
