El Gordo 2.5bn Mega Lottery

The Spanish Christmas lottery or El Gordo Navidad takes place tomorrow and is set to pay out a massive €2.5 billion to over 1.2 million winners. Considered the biggest lottery in the world, the draw will be held in Palacio de Congresos de Madrid and is televised nationwide.

Prizes for the El Gordo lottery have increased substantially since last year and is expected to pay out one hundred eighty prizes worth €4 million each and as many number of prizes worth €1.25 million each. In addition, nearly 350,000 lottery players are expected to win €1,000 each and thousands more will win smaller prizes.

Given the size of the prizes, millions of Spanish lottery players are queuing up to purchase tickets for the world’s largest lottery.

The El Gordo is based on tickets with 5 digit numbers and due to the popularity of the game, each set of numbers on each of the tickets are sold multiple times, in several “series”.

An entire ticket or billete is priced at €200 but tickets are also sold as one tenth or decimos for a price of €20 with a payout of 10% of the total prize pot.

Juan Antonio Gallardo, sales director of the National Lottery said that “The Christmas lottery is written into Spaniards’ DNA. No other lottery in the world sells so much.”

Undeterred by the prospect of recession, four out of every five Spaniards are expected to purchase tickets for tomorrow’s El Gordo draw and long queues through the streets are testament to the popularity of the Spanish Christmas Lottery which is a tradition that dates back two centuries.

UK lottery players have a special lottery coming up too with Friday’s Mega Millionaire Draw which will see twenty five players win a million each.

Written by Joe Taylor for EuroMillion Lottery– your best source for lottery news