What is El Gordo aka the Fat One lottery in Spain?

Spain’s El Gordo lottery is paying out more than 2 billion euros in prizes Tuesday.

The local syndicate will share out four million euros between them. There are also second prizes, third prizes, fourth prizes, and so on, worth anywhere from hundreds of thousands of Euros on down to €200 (the price of a single ticket). Instead, the lottery was created to give as many people as possible a Christmas bonus with family and friends often sharing tickets.

This year El Gordo has collected more than $3 billion, and is set to issue winnings of 2.2 billion euros ($ 2.4 billion).

The winning number – 79140 – appeared on 1,600 tickets in the town, with each now worth €400,000.

A worker opens a trap-door in a giant drum to let the balls bearing ticket numbers fall into a lower compartment before the start of Spain’s Christmas lottery, in Madrid, Tuesday, Dec. 22, 2015. Lottery officials say that can happen because of the way tickets, which are pre-printed, are allocated to sales points.

The mayor of Roquetas de Mar called the win great news for his city in the province of Almeria, which has an unemployment rate of 31 percent – much higher than Spain’s national 21 percent jobless rate.

The lottery was first established as a charity in 1763, during the reign of King Carlos III, but its objective gradually shifted toward filling state coffers.

You can even buy your lottery tickets for the 2016 El Gordo now (maybe you could throw a few euros our way when you hit the big time?). It’s the world’s largest lottery drawing.

It has been estimated that 75 per cent of adult Spaniards play the Christmas lottery and the state company which organises The Fat One reckons that this year each Spaniard will spend an average of €62.72 on tickets.

And that is not all, the website goes on to add that “The El Gordo lottery pays out more lottery prizes than any other lottery draw in the world, which is why the Spanish Christmas lottery is the biggest lottery payout in the world”.