Spanish Christmas lottery spreads $3 billion cheer

[December 22, 2010]  MADRID (AP) -- Spain's beloved Christmas lottery -- known as "El Gordo" (The Fat One) -- spread euro2.3 billion ($3 billion) in holiday cheer Wednesday in a country facing 20 percent unemployment.

The lottery billed as the world's richest has no single jackpot but rather a complex share-the-wealth system in which thousands of five-digit numbers running from 00000 to 84999 win at least something.

This can range from the face value of a euro20 ($26.31) -- in other words, you get back the money you spent on the ticket -- to the top prize of euro300,000 ($394,650).

The sweepstakes, which goes on for about three hours, ushers in the Christmas season in Spain. The lottery goes back to 1812 and many Spaniards spend the day glued to TV sets, radios and computer terminals to see if they are among the lucky.

People often team up to buy shares of tickets sold by bars, sports clubs and in business offices.

Uniformed children from a Madrid school that used to be a home for orphans pick small wooden balls bearing the winning numbers and corresponding prizes out of two giant golden tumblers, and sing them out in a time-honored chant known to every Spaniard.

To complicate things further -- and ensure the money trickles down as much as possible -- each of the numbers running from 00000 to 84999 appears on 1,950 euro20 coupons.

This year, the top prize -- known, like the lottery itself, as El Gordo -- went to the number 79250. Tickets bearing that number were sold in the Madrid area, Barcelona, Alicante in the east and other cities ranging from the Basque region in the north to Tenerife in the Canary Islands.

The most commonly won amount for a euro20 coupon is euro100 ($131.55).

[Associated Press; By DANIEL WOOLLS]

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