Spanish Christmas Lottery facts for kids
The Spanish Christmas Lottery (officially called Sorteo Extraordinario de Navidad) is a huge and very popular lottery draw in Spain. It happens every year on December 22nd, just before Christmas. This lottery is run by the Spanish government's lottery group, Loterías y Apuestas del Estado.
It's known as the biggest lottery in the world because of the massive amount of money it pays out in prizes. In 2024, there were 193 million tickets, each costing €20. The total prize money available was an amazing €2.702 billion! The top prize, called El Gordo (which means "the big one"), was worth €772 million in total. Sometimes, people just call the whole lottery El Gordo, but that name actually refers only to the main prize.
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A Look Back: History of the Lottery
The Lotería Nacional, which is the main Spanish lottery, started a long time ago, on March 4, 1812. It's one of the oldest lotteries still running today! Even during the Spanish Civil War, the lottery continued, with draws happening on both sides of the conflict.
The first Christmas lottery draw took place on December 18, 1812, in a city called Cádiz. The winning number back then was 03604. It became an "extraordinary" draw in 1818, meaning it had higher ticket prices and bigger prizes than regular draws. The name Sorteo de Navidad (Christmas Draw) was first officially used in 1897.
How Tickets and Prizes Work
The Christmas lottery uses tickets with five-digit numbers, from 00000 to 99999. Since there are only 100,000 unique numbers, each number is printed many times in different "series." This way, the lottery can sell millions of tickets each year. For example, in 2024, there were 193 series, meaning 19.3 million tickets were available. Each full ticket costs €200.
Because a €200 ticket is quite expensive, each ticket is actually made up of ten smaller parts called décimos. Each décimo costs €20. If your décimo wins a prize, you get one-tenth (10%) of that prize.
You can buy tickets at official lottery shops all over Spain, or from street sellers. Sometimes, a whole town or village might buy tickets with the same number. If that number wins, everyone in that town could become a winner! Places where big prizes have been won often become popular spots for people to buy their tickets. You can also buy tickets online, sometimes with a small extra fee.
Many groups, like charities, workplaces, or sports teams, buy full tickets and then split them into even smaller shares. They sell these shares to people, often adding a small fee as a donation. If the ticket wins, everyone who bought a share gets their part of the prize. For example, if a charity buys a décimo and splits it into ten shares, each share would get 1% of the prize.
For each of the 193 series in 2024, here's how the prizes were set up:
| Quantity | Prize | Description | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | €4,000,000 | First Prize (El Gordo) | €4,000,000 |
| 1 | €1,250,000 | Second Prize | €1,250,000 |
| 1 | €500,000 | Third Prize | €500,000 |
| 2 | €200,000 | Fourth Prizes | €400,000 |
| 8 | €60,000 | Fifth Prizes | €480,000 |
| 1,794 | €1,000 | La Pedrea (small prizes) | €1,794,000 |
| 2 | €20,000 | For numbers just above and below the First Prize | €40,000 |
| 2 | €12,500 | For numbers just above and below the Second Prize | €25,000 |
| 2 | €9,600 | For numbers just above and below the Third Prize | €19,200 |
| 99 | €1,000 | For numbers with the same first three digits as the First Prize | €99,000 |
| 99 | €1,000 | For numbers with the same first three digits as the Second Prize | €99,000 |
| 99 | €1,000 | For numbers with the same first three digits as the Third Prize | €99,000 |
| 198 | €1,000 | For numbers with the same first three digits as each Fourth Prize | €198,000 |
| 999 | €1,000 | For numbers with the same last two digits as the First Prize | €999,000 |
| 999 | €1,000 | For numbers with the same last two digits as the Second Prize | €999,000 |
| 999 | €1,000 | For numbers with the same last two digits as the Third Prize | €999,000 |
| 9,999 | €200 | For numbers with the same last digit as the First Prize (Reintegro) | €1,999,800 |
| Total per series | €14,000,000 | ||
| Total for the 193 series | €2,702,000,000 | ||
The number of tickets and series, and the prize amounts, can change slightly each year. For example, in 2011, the El Gordo prize increased from €3,000,000 to €4,000,000.
The Big Draw Day
The lottery drawing always happens on the morning of December 22nd. It's a very special event! It used to be held at the Loterías y Apuestas del Estado hall in Madrid, but now it takes place at the Teatro Real in Madrid.
What makes the draw unique is that children from the San Ildefonso school sing out the winning numbers and their prizes. It's a long-standing tradition! The public can attend the event, and many people dress up in fun, lottery-themed costumes. The whole draw is broadcast live on Spanish TV and radio, and also online.
Two big, round cages are used for the draw. The larger cage holds 100,000 small wooden balls, each with a unique five-digit ticket number (00000 to 99999). The smaller cage holds 1,807 small wooden balls, each with a prize amount written on it. These prize balls include:
- 1 ball for the first prize (El Gordo)
- 1 ball for the second prize
- 1 ball for the third prize
- 2 balls for the fourth prizes
- 8 balls for the fifth prizes
- 1,794 balls for the small prizes, called la pedrea
The wooden balls are carefully made with lasers to make sure they all weigh exactly the same. Before the draw, they are shown to the public to ensure no numbers are missing.
During the draw, one ball is taken out from each cage at the same time. One child sings the winning number, and another child sings the prize amount. They put the balls onto long wires, which are then stored in special frames. When a big prize is drawn, the children pause, sing the number and prize many times, and show the balls to a committee and a camera. This process takes several hours because there are so many prizes! The children work in shifts until all the prize balls are gone. As soon as El Gordo is drawn, the winning number is immediately shared everywhere.
After the draw, all the numbers and prizes are checked carefully. An official list of prizes is then printed and sent out to lottery shops and the media. This way, everyone can check their tickets. The official list is what counts, even if a child made a mistake while singing. For example, in 1987, children sang the wrong number for El Gordo, but the official list corrected it!
This two-cage system is now only used for the Christmas draw. Other Spanish lotteries use a different system with five cages, each holding balls numbered 0 to 9, to draw the five digits of the winning numbers.
People who don't win often say, "It's health that really matters!" If you get your money back (a reintegro), many people use that money to buy a ticket for the Sorteo Extraordinario de El Niño, which is the second biggest lottery draw in Spain, held on January 6th.
Your Chances of Winning
The Spanish Christmas Lottery has better chances of winning something compared to many other lotteries. About 15.38% of all tickets win some kind of prize! This means that the prizes are spread out quite a lot across Spain.
The smallest prize is the reintegro, where you get your €20 back if your ticket's last digit matches the last digit of El Gordo. This means 10% of all tickets get their money back!
Your chances of winning El Gordo are 1 in 100,000. To compare, your chances of winning the top prize in EuroMillions are much, much smaller (1 in 139,838,160).
Here are the odds of winning different prizes:
| Prize | Odds of winning |
|---|---|
| 1st prize (El Gordo) | 1:100,000 |
| 2nd prize | 1:100,000 |
| 3rd prize | 1:100,000 |
| 4th prize | 1:50,000 |
| 5th prize | 1:12,500 |
| Tickets with numbers one below and above the 1st prize | 1:50,000 |
| Tickets with numbers one below and above the 2nd prize | 1:50,000 |
| Tickets with numbers one below and above the 3rd prize | 1:50,000 |
| For all numbers which have the same first three digits as the 1st prize | 1:1,010 |
| For all numbers which have the same first three digits as the 2nd prize | 1:1,010 |
| For all numbers which have the same first three digits as the 3rd prize | 1:1,010 |
| For all numbers which have the same first three digits as the 4th prize | 1:505 |
| For all numbers which have the same last two digits as the 1st prize | 1:100 |
| For all numbers which have the same last two digits as the 2nd prize | 1:100 |
| For all numbers which have the same last two digits as the 3rd prize | 1:100 |
| La Pedrea | 1:56 |
| For all numbers which have the same last digit as the 1st prize (Reintegro) | 1:10 |
All About El Gordo
The most exciting part of the draw is when El Gordo is announced! Since lottery shops often sell many series of the same number, the winners of El Gordo often live in the same area, work for the same company, or belong to the same club. For example, in 2011, El Gordo was sold entirely in Grañén, a small town with only about 2,000 people! This meant that many people in that town became big winners.
It's a common misunderstanding that El Gordo is the name of the Christmas Lottery itself. But El Gordo simply means "the big one" or "the first prize." Other Spanish lotteries also have their own Gordo (first prize). There's even a weekly lottery game called El Gordo de la Primitiva, which is a completely different game from the Christmas lottery.
How El Gordo Prizes Have Changed
The price of a ticket and the amount of the El Gordo prize have changed over the years. Remember, a décimo is one-tenth of a ticket, so it wins one-tenth of the prize. For example, in 1812, El Gordo was 40,000 pesetas (the old Spanish currency) per ticket. By 2002, when Spain started using the Euro, El Gordo became €2,000,000 per ticket. Since 2011, El Gordo has been €4,000,000 per ticket.
See also
In Spanish: Sorteo Extraordinario de Navidad para niños
