The Spanish Lottery
or El Gordo (The Fat One) is the biggest
lottery in the world, and one of the
oldest having its roots back in 1812.
The El Gordo Spanish Lottery has
the biggest prize pool of any lottery in
the world, last year offering over €2
billion in prize money!
The El Gordo de Navidad is held on December 22nd and there are two other yearly draws in this massive Lottery, Play the Sorteo del Nino on January 6th and then 5th July for the Summer Fat one.
The draw is made with two bowls and can take up to five hours from start to finish, however the event is so enshrined into Spanish culture the whole country watches every single second of it.
Balls are taken from each bowl simultaneously until all the prizes are won. Chances of winning any prize in the El Gordo Spanish Lottery stand at around 1:6 with around 2,000 winning at least the face value of the ticket.
How to play the El Gordo Spanish Lottery
The Spanish Lottery works completely differently to most lotteries in the world. A whole ticket or billete is very expensive. So to make it more affordable, tickets are split up into ten ‘decimos’ and can be bought separately. However if you do just but a ‘decimo’ (tenth of a ticket) then you will only win one tenth of the prize for that ticket.
Due to the cost of tickets it’s very common for whole families or even villages to buy whole tickets together and split the cost and share the winnings. This makes the El Gordo a very social event as players ‘play together’ under the same ticket.
Unlike most lotteries, there are a number of ways to play the El Gordo, tickets are on sale from the summer so you can purchase them on your summer holiday in Spain or use the links on this page to purchase them and get a chance to win a prize in the €2 Billion draw!
