Spain’s 200-year-old holiday lottery, The Fat One, delivered big prizes again this year, with more than $2.8 billion in prizes competed for by schoolchildren and watched live around the world.
The annual “El Gordo” lottery was held on Sunday at the Teatro Real, one of the country’s leading opera houses, in the capital Madrid.
Unlike many lotteries, there is no single jackpot, and prizes are distributed to thousands of people through a complex system. Across the country, family, coworkers, and friends often pool their money to buy tickets and attend.
Although multiple tickets with the same number are sold, stores usually only sell one or two numbers, meaning that the people who win the big prizes often live in the same area.
El Gordo takes place every December 22nd and is an important part of Spain’s Christmas season, offering one of the world’s largest lottery prizes. Sponsored by the Spanish government and begun in 1812 during the Napoleonic Wars, the painting was broadcast live on national television and livestreamed around the world.
The top prize of 400,000 euros (approximately $416,588) was won Sunday by several holders of ticket number 72480, purchased in the northern city of Logroño, the capital of La Rioja state, according to the official website of El Gordo newspaper. did.
The second prize was 125,000 euros ($130,184) and the third prize was 50,000 euros ($52,073).
As is customary, there were lively celebrations across the country after the winner was announced, with everyone bursting into bottles of Prosecco surrounded by friends and family.
The drawing began at 9 a.m. (3 a.m. ET) and people gathered from towns and cities across the country to watch.
Students ages 8 to 14 from San Ildefonso Elementary School, which was founded more than 500 years ago, announced the winners by singing the numbers drawn from a wooden ball and the corresponding prize money.
Tickets will be printed and sold in succession. In other words, players buy tickets that have pre-printed numbers that they did not personally select.
The number of tickets in the series changes every year, and according to the official website, in 2024 there will be 193 tickets for each number, meaning that many people will share the same winning numbers.
According to the El Gordo website, most of the 2024 winners were from Madrid, Spain’s capital.
Players can purchase two types of tickets. One is a full ticket, called a billet, for 200 euros ($208), and the other is a decimo, which is one-tenth the size and costs 20 euros (nearly $21).
According to El Gordo’s website, the cost of playing a billet as part of a syndicate is high, so it is common for the billets to be split among groups.
