The El Gordo Spanish Christmas Lottery -
How to Play the World's Biggest and Richest Lottery
El Gordo means “The Big One” or “The Fat One” and is the nickname given to the first prize jackpot in the Spanish Christmas Lottery (Loteria de Navidad)
With a total prize payout of 2.6 billion Euros (€2,620 million) and first prize jackpot of 585 million euros the El Gordo Spanish Christmas Lottery is the biggest and richest lottery in the world.
The lottery draw takes place over 3 hours on the 22nd of December when 98% of the population of Spain is joined by many thousands of people from around the world to watch the live TV show in which children from the Madrid San Ilidefonso School sing out the winning numbers.
- The draw is limited to 85,000 numbered tickets or “billete”.
- Each ticket is sub-divided into 10 parts called “decimos”.
- Each ticket number is sold not just once but up to 195 times in a “series”.
Playing in the El Gordo Spanish Christmas Lottery is unlike playing in a normal lottery where the jackpot could be won by a single person. With “The Big One”, 195 tickets win the jackpot and share the €585 million first prize.
Each decimo (tenth of a ticket) wins €300,000 (three hundred thousand euros) and each full ticket of 10 decimo wins €3,000,000 Euros (three million euros).
The main El Gordo Spanish Christmas Lottery Prizes are:
- 195 x jackpot prizes of €3 million each (€300,000 per decimo)
- 195 x prizes of €1 million each (€100,000 per decimo)
- 195 x prizes of €500,000 each (€50,000 per decimo)
- 390 x prizes of €200,000 each (€20,000 per decimo)
- 1,560 x prizes of €50,000 each (€5,000 per decimo)
- 345,930 x prizes of €1,000 each (€100 per decimo)
Plus many other prizes ranging from €20,000 to €200 Euros.
Tickets are sold in decimos with one decimo costing €20. A full ticket it is actually
10 x decimo and costs €200 Euros.
To share the cost of tickets, families, friends and neighbours often play together in groups or lottery syndicates purchasing their tickets early rather than risking the chance of not being able to get a ticket because the draw is sold out.
Please Note: You can only join an Elgordo Lottery Syndicate in October, November or December.
Places in the following lottery syndicates are available all year the UK Lotto Syndicate, the Euromillions Syndicate and normal Spanish Lottery Syndicate
