Who will win the “Gordo” (the jackpot)? On Friday, like every December 22nd, Spaniards follow with passion – with family, friends or work colleagues – the drawing of the Christmas lottery, a real social phenomenon.
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For four hours starting at 9:00 a.m. (08:00 GMT), children dressed in their Sunday best from San Ildefonso College in Madrid – an institution for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds – will move around two golden globes, leading them to declaim from their lungs, almost singing, the winning numbers and the corresponding prizes.
The very kitschy ceremony takes place at the Royal Theater in Madrid and is broadcast live and in full on television, captivating millions of people every year.
With a record sum of 2.59 billion euros to be shared between several winners this year, this lottery is above all a social event based on the idea of sharing, because we rarely play it alone.
“I bought tickets for the whole family, everyone knows I'm coming and takes advantage of it,” José Moreno, 52, told AFP, who waited in line for more than two hours to be able to buy his tickets at Doña Manolita. an almost mythical outlet in the center of Madrid, near the famous Puerta del Sol square.
“I bought the same number so we could all have the same thing,” explains this Barcelona-based concierge. During a visit to Madrid he stopped by Doña Manolita “if he was lucky”.
Share the happiness
On this cold winter morning in Madrid, hundreds of people are also waiting in line to acquire the right to dream, an example of the passion that this lottery inspires every December.
AFP
The “Gordo”, the principle of which is quite complicated, has a unique feature that makes it so attractive in the eyes of the Spanish: families, friends, work colleagues or members of sports clubs are used to getting together and betting on the same number one after the other to share the winnings when their number comes up.
This practice is made possible by the fact that each number can actually be purchased by 1,850 different people at the price of 20 euros: this is the “Décimo” (tenth), so called because it represents the tenth of it, which the Citizens receive a ticket worth 200 euros as a lottery.
If a ticket wins the “Gordo”, the winnings amount to four million euros, and a player who spent 20 euros on a “Décimo” will therefore receive 400,000 euros. Above all, there are 185 jackpots totaling four million, plus a variety of smaller prizes.
In most cases, winnings are shared between several people who played together. Care is taken to note the amount of the respective stake in order to avoid inconveniences when dividing the jackpot.
Traditionally, bars, restaurants and shops of all kinds – from butchers to pharmacies – buy tickets with the same number to resell to their regular customers.
Last year, a technology company in Madrid was able to redistribute 90 million euros to its 4,000 employees with all “Dezimos” of the same winning number.
The December 22 lottery resulted in several kissing sequences amidst champagne bottles on television.
Avoid the queue
In the weeks leading up to the draw, it is not uncommon to see queues stretching several hundred meters long and stretching several blocks in front of the Doña Manolita agency, with people arriving from Madrid and all over Spain.
Street vendors in the area offer tickets for resale for a small additional fee.
“The queue is long, so I decided to pay two euros more per tenth,” says Daniel Gómez, a 70-year-old Venezuelan pensioner who lives in Granada (south).
Last year, Spaniards spent an average of 67.11 euros per person on this lottery.
The Christmas lottery, launched in 1892, represents an enormous source of income for the state, which aims to make a profit of more than one billion euros this year – not including the taxes subsequently levied on the winnings.