Life in Culebrón

I wasn't going to do this, I've done it so many times before, then I had a conversation. So I thought why not? If you're going to win the El Sorteo Extraordinario de Navidad, the big Christmas State Lottery, el Gordo, on 22 December, an absolutely essential first step to becoming temporarily wealthy, is to get hold of a lottery ticket. If you don't have a ticket your chances of winning are nil. For most people that means buying one. I should qualify that. It's much more likely that you'll buy a tenth of a lottery ticket, a décimo, and with that you have the chance of winning 400,000€.  If you were to buy a full ticket from one of the State Lottery Outlets, Loterías y Apuestas del Estado (like the one a few doors down from the Consum supermarket in Pinoso) it would cost you 200€. That's why most people don't. Instead they buy a tenth of a ticket for 20€. The big prize, el Gordo, the fat one, is worth 4 million euros for the full ticket or 400,000€ for the...

A couple of chums were talking about buying their weekly Euromillones (EuroMillions) ticket. I asked after their Christmas lottery purchases. They sort of knew what I meant but they sort of didn't. I saw an opening for a blog. Just to be even handed O.N.C.E., the organisation for people with a visual impairment, run a Christmas lottery and there's a State lottery, el Niño, to coincide with Three Kings. I'm sure they are all fine and dandy but the one that counts, the big one, is the fat one - el Gordo - drawn on 22 December. In truth, el Gordo isn't quite so fat. A winning ticket is worth 4 million euros. The thing that most people buy though isn't a ticket, it's a decimo; a tenth of a ticket. If you buy a ticket from one of the State Lottery Administraciones and you pay 20€ for it then you have a decimo.  If you want to have a go you will see the ticket/decimos (I'm going to stop that now) on sale all over the place. As well as in the lottery administration...