Drawing begins for Spain’s $2.4 billion ‘El Gordo’ lottery

This year’s biggest victor of the top prize, known as El Gordo, or The Fat One, is in the coastal tourist town of Roquetas de Mar, in the southern region of Almeria, where a group of residents will now share out a 4-million-euro prize.

It is the largest prize giveaway in history and an estimated 90 per cent of eligible Spanish people bought a ticket.

The top prize is capped at 4 million euros ($4.36 million), which is split up among a number of winning tickets.

Feeling jealous? Well, you shouldn’t because you can play the next one (which takes place in a year’s time), even if you’re not from Spain.

In fact, whole villages sometimes buy into El Gordo as part of their Christmas celebrations, while some Spanish companies hand out tickets to employees. Smiling winners showed up at the lottery agency and cracked open the bubbly.

Mayor Gabriel Amat told a local newspaper that he’s thrilled about the impact the massive lottery win will have on his town. Buyers can only pick from the numbers their vendor has available. “Some were sold to tourists, and two or three went to the Canary Islands”.

People line up to buy lottery tickets in Madrid today.

“I feel a great joy, mainly because it’s so well spread out, especially among workers”, Jose Martin said.

The standard ticket costs 20 euros.

Spain established its national lottery as a charity in 1763, during the reign of King Carlos III, but its objective gradually shifted toward filling state coffers. El Gordo itself dates from 1812 and the children who have sung out the numbers for centuries attend the Saint Ildefonso school. Queues form outside lottery booths weeks ahead of the draw and on December 22 each year people tune into radio or television to find out if they are among the lucky ones.

Children carried on the tradition of singing the winning numbers and their corresponding prizes aloud as they were drawn at the hours-long, televised event in Madrid.