Spanish Christmas Lottery

2011 Prizes
for each of the 180 series of tickets

Prize		Winning number(s)
First "El Gordo"	1 × €4,000,000	58268
Second	1 × €1,250,000	53404
Third	1 × €500,000	02184
Fourth	2 × €200,000	12249, 66832
Fifth	8 × €60,000	03643, 08128, 33003, 92202, 22418, 62718, 57038, 34001
"la Pedrea"	1774 × €1,000	—
# = any digit — = between The number of prizes is given per series: in 2010, there were 195 series of numbers, giving a total prize value of €2,320,500,000. Prize values are given per number (billete): the tickets which are generally sold (décimos) give prizes which are one tenth of the amount quoted here.

The Spanish Christmas Lottery (Sorteo de Navidad or Lotería de Navidad) is a national lottery game organized every year since 1812 by a branch of the Spanish Public Administration, now called Loterías y Apuestas del Estado. The name Sorteo de Navidad was used for the first time in 1892. As measured by the total prize payout, the Christmas Lottery is considered the biggest lottery worldwide. In 2006, if all of the tickets were sold, the total amount payout of prizes would be worth more than €2.142 billion (70% of ticket sales). The total amount of all prizes of the first category called El Gordo ("the big one") was €540,000,000 which was distributed among 180 winning tickets (billetes) that won €3,000,000 each.

Ticket numbers and prizes

The Christmas Lottery is based on tickets which have 5-digit numbers, just like the regular drawing of the Spanish national lottery. Due to the enormous popularity of the game, each set of numbers on each of the tickets is sold multiple times, in several so-called "series". Between series, there is no difference in prize-money. That is, a prize on a 5-digit number is paid on that number in every unit. Therefore, the series number (no. 2 in the illustration) is merely an administrative one.

An entire ticket (called billete) costs €200. Because this may be too expensive, the tickets are usually sold as tenths (called décimos). The illustration shows a décimo (mentioning 1º fraccion, or "the 1st fraction" out of ten). The price is €20; of course the payout is 10% of the published prize. On a private basis, or through associations and other organizations, it is also possible to buy or be given even smaller portions of one ticket. Usually, the price of those portions is incremented by a supplement that is paid as a donation to the intermediary organization.

"Billete" - 200€ each - An entire ticket of one number which consists of 10 "décimos" (tenths of a ticket).
"Décimo" - 20€ each - One tenth of a full ticket (billete). Most people purchase "décimos".
"Serie" - Each "billete", or number, is printed up many times as a different series.
"Number" - A unique 5 digit number is printed for each billete and on the subsequent series of that billete. Example: the billete with the number "00001" is printed 195 times under different series numbers.
Participations - Many organizations buy décimos and divide them up and sell them as participations to their customers or employees. Usually they will copy the original ticket, write the amount of the participation, and sign it as proof of participation. If the ticket is a winner, anyone holding a participation will be entitled to the corresponding amount, depending on the amount they paid.

The exact quantity of tickets and series, as well as their prices and the exact distribution of prizes, may be different each year. For example, in 2004, there were exactly 66,000 different numbers in 195 series. In 2005, there were 85,000 numbers in 170 series, whereas in 2006 the number of series was increased to 180. The price of an entire ticket (billete) was €200; a tenth (décimo) was €20. In 2011 the are exactly 99,000 different numbers in 180 series.

According to reports in the press, about 98% of all Spanish people hold at least a small portion of a lottery ticket in the Christmas Lottery each year, even if they do not gamble during the rest of the year (this includes tickets purchased or received as a gift or exchanged with family and acquaintances). Recently, tickets may be available each year as early as August. Lotería Nacional thus expects to pick on the superstition of holidaymakers who may feel they are in a "lucky place".^{[citation needed]}

In the next Christmas Lottery (2011) there are some changes in prizes: First "El Gordo" increased from 300,000€ to 400,000€. Second increased from 100,000€ to 125,000€. Fifth increased from 50,000€ to 60,000€.

The draw

Since December 18, 1812, the Christmas Lottery drawings are held according to exactly the same procedure each year. In the Lotería Nacional hall of Madrid, pupils of the San Ildefonso school (formerly reserved for orphans of public servants) draw the numbers and corresponding prizes, singing the results aloud in front of the public. The state-run Televisión Española and Radio Nacional de España and other media outlets broadcast the entire draw. The public attending the event may be dressed in lottery-related extravagant clothing and hats.

Two spherical vessels are used. The big one of the two contains several tens of thousands of small wooden balls, each with a unique 5-digit ticket number on it. The smaller sphere contains 1,787 wooden balls, each one with a prize in euros on it (1774 balls for the small prizes, or la pedrea, literally "the pebble-avalache," or "stoning") and 13 balls for the major prizes (one 1st prize ball, one 2nd prize ball, one 3rd prize ball, two 4th prize balls and eight 5th prize balls). Before being thrown into the sphere, the numbers are shown to check that no required numbers (sold ticket numbers and prizes) are missing.

A single ball is extracted from each of the revolving spheres at the same time. One child sings the winning number, the other child sings the corresponding prize. This is repeated until the 1,787 prize-balls are connected to a number. The balls have holes on them so they would be slotted into wires in frames for later presentation. When a major prize is drawn, both children repeat their singing multiple times, and show the balls to a committee, and then to a fixed camera with two Phillips screwdriver heads mounted at the front, all before being inserted into a frame as the others. Although the drawing is by chance, the children who draw the higher prizes are applauded. Some prizes are not drawn separately, but calculated from the winning numbers:

• The two neighbouring numbers of the top three prizes are also given a prize.
• The numbers ending on the last two winning digits of first, second, and third prizes receive €1,000 each.
• Every number ending in the same digit as the Gordo receives €200.

Due to the sheer number of prizes, this procedure takes about three hours. The children work in about eight to nine shifts, equal to the number of frames of numbers to be drawn. Until 1984 only boys from San Ildefonso participated in the drawing; that year Mónica Rodríguez became the first girl to sing the results, including a fourth prize of 25 million Spanish pesetas. It is a custom that the winners donate some of the money to the San Ildefonso school.

In recent years, more than 4,800 individual numbers won at least €1,000 per full billete. The probability of winning some prize is roughly 15%. Since the odds of evening out the costs are 10% (by matching the final digit), chances are that about 5% are making money off their number.

Those who lost will make the commonplace comment that "it's health that really matters". Players who just get their money back will often re-invest the prize in a ticket for El Niño, the second most important draw, held before the feast of Epiphany of Jesus (January 6).

The two-vessels system was the traditional one in Spanish lottery, but now is only used in the Christmas extraordinary lottery. The rest of the weekly and extraordinary draws during the year use five vessels with ten balls each, from where the five figures of the winning number are drawn.

El Gordo

The second prize tickets for the 2006 Christmas lottery were all sold from a kiosk on the Puerta del Sol in central Madrid.

The climax of the drawing is the moment when the Gordo is drawn (in 2006, 3 million euro for each of the 180 billetes, or €300,000 for each of the 1800 décimos, sold with the winning number). Lottery outlets usually only sell tickets for one or two numbers^{[citation needed]}, so the winners of the largest prizes often live in the same town or area or work for the same company. In 2005, the winning number was sold in the town of Vic in Catalonia (population 37,825), whose inhabitants shared about 500 million euro (€300,000 per winning décimo). In 2006, the winning number was sold in eight different lottery outlets across Spain, while the second prize number (€100,000 per décimo) was only ever sold from a kiosk on the Puerta del Sol in central Madrid.

As a misconception in many non-Spanish speaking countries, it is often assumed that the term El Gordo is specific for the Christmas Lottery; some even think that El Gordo is in fact the name of the lottery. However, the real meaning of El Gordo is simply "the first prize" (literally "the fat one" or more accurately "the big one"); other lotteries have their Gordo as well. To add to the confusion, there is a relatively new weekly Spanish lottery game called El Gordo de la Primitiva, which has nothing in common with the Christmas lottery, except the fact that it is organized by the Spanish public lottery entity Loterías y Apuestas del Estado.

External links

• (English) Spanish Christmas lottery culture, prizes and timings
• "El timo global 'del euromillón'" (Spanish) An article in the paper El País dated 5 November 2007 on a scam about the El Gordo prize for the Loterie de la Navidad. Accessed on 8 November 2007.
• (English) News report of the 2007 draw paying out 2.2 billion Euros in prizes
• (English) How the Christmas draw works plus a video clip of the draw itself
• (Spanish) Official 2010 site