The State Christmas Lottery

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 typical 20€ stake. Obviously that's before the tax people take their cut. Often you will see decimos on sale in bars and the like. Should you decide to buy your lottery ticket from there you're likely to end up paying 23€. Typically the bar is selling the décimos at 3€ over the odds on behalf of some "worthy" cause.

So each of the décimos has five numbers. The numbers start at 00000 and go on to 99999. There are 193 series of tickets. This means that each number, let's take an example 75045, will be repeated 193 times. 75045 series 1, 75045 series 2 and so on. That's why there are, possibly, 193 winning tickets. Remembering that each ticket is sold in tenths, there are, potentially, 1,930 winning décimos. 

In these days of huge jackpots I suppose that 400,000€ sounds like a mere bagatelle. The big difference is that if all the décimos of a particular number were sold, there would be 1,930 winners and that amounts to a whopping 772 million Euros payout.

There is a tendency amongst groups of Spaniards to buy the same number. The group might be a family - Granny buys two full tickets made up of 20 décimos to hand out to her brothers, sisters, sons, daughters etc. as a bit of a Christmas stocking filler. If the number comes up then each of those relatives will be 400,000€ better off. If it's a factory the car park will soon be full of new BMWs and, if it's a school parent teachers association (AMPA), then the school community will be full of joyful parents and teachers. When the number of the Culebrón village neighbourhood association comes up, on Sunday, we Culebreneros will be splashing the cava around willy nilly. Generally people simply choose from the tickets on display looking for one that ends in their lucky number, includes their birthday etc., but it is possible, online, to see if a particular number, your postcode for instance, is available. 

The tickets are all sold by the different "administraciones", the State Lottery Shops even if they end up with the local pigeon fanciers group or synchronised swimmers fan club. The numbers are allocated randomly to the different administraciones around the country. So the same number may be sold in Alicante, Astorga and Avila or that number may nearly all be sold in some village in Andalucía. 

Certain administraciones have a reputation for being lucky, though actually it's simply a numbers game. If people believe that the Doña Manolita administración, in Madrid, is going to sell the winner, more people will buy their décimos there. The volume of sales means there is a better chance that the winner will come from that administración. It doesn't stop people queuing for hours outside the famous offices though.

How the winning numbers are chosen is also very individual - none of this combining individual digits to get the winning number. There are two enormous "bombos" like those globe-shaped things that you get in a home bingo game to spit out the numbers. In one of the bombos there are all the numbers that are on the individual tickets, that's 100,000 individual numbers. So there is a ball that reads 00000 and another that reads 99999 and there are all the numbers in between. In a smaller bombo alongside there are 1,807 balls each one inscribed with a cash value. Youngsters from the Colegio de San Ildefonso in Segovia stand alongside the two bombos and sing out what it says on the ball disgorged by their bombo. First the number then the prize.

The majority of the little wooden balls, in that smaller bombo, have 1,000€ written on them. This is referred to as the pedrea. For those numbers you'll get 100€ back for your 20€ stake. There is just one ball with the 4 million jackpot and it's the same for the less valuable second and third prizes. There are another ten balls that will produce a win of more than 1,000€. Other prizes are based on having numbers very close to the winners, sharing some of the numbers etc. It's always worth checking your number against any of the dozens of internet sites where the winners are published or going back to the administración to have your number checked. 

Turn on a radio or TV or go into a bar on the 22nd after 9am and you will hear that singing of numbers and amounts, broadcast from the Teatro Real in Madrid all morning, until the prizes are exhausted.

Oh, and if you win some offensive amount of cash as a result of reading this blog don't worry yourself that I'll be offended if you want to offer me large wads of cash as a thank you.

A low fi buyer's guide to the Christmas lottery

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 administrations they're in shops and bars and petrol stations; in fact if you have contact with any Spanish organisation near Christmas you will, likely, be the target of a high pressure sales pitch. That's because the Friends of the Wine, the Pigeon Fanciers and every other group in Spain buys tickets to sell on. They raise funds by adding a few euros to the ticket's face value. The 20€ decimo from your Badminton Club will probably cost 23€ or 24€. With a decimo, if you win the fat one, you'll only get 400,000€, a tenth of four million euros. Actually it will be less because the tax people will take 72,000€ of your haul.

As I said a full ticket, or series, consists of 10 decimos and an individual decimo costs 20€. This means a full ticket costs 200€. Each decimo from the same ticket carries the same five figure number. In fact, this year, there will be 180 series of each number so there are, potentially, 1,800 decimos with the same number. This is why the Christmas lottery is so popular. Unlike most lotteries, where there is one big winner, el Gordo spreads its largesse through hundreds and thousands of people with a good chance of a decent, if not spectacular, payout.

The lottery tickets come from an official vendor, an administración. Each administración, or lottery shop, buys as many tickets as it thinks it can sell. They always buy a lot of the same number so the numbers tend to be grouped in a geographical area. Imagine that you're the boss of a medium sized firm. You may buy 10 series of decimos, all with the same number, and give one to everyone who works for you. If you're a less altruistic boss you might sell the tickets in the staff room. Even then it's likely that a good percentage of your workforce will end up with the same lottery number. Families often do the thing where senior family members buy and distribute numbers around the family. Imagine what happens if the number comes up. Imagine that the winning number is spread amongst cousins, uncles and grandmas, that all the workers at the engineering works have the same winning number or all the players and season ticket holders of the town football club, the domino playing pensioners club or indeed lots of people living in the same town. The big prize, 400,000€ per decimo, may not be a fortune but it would pay off most mortgages and leave a bit over for a nice holiday and a new BMW. And imagine the effect if, say, 200 people had the winning number in La Romana, Pinoso or Monóvar.

The Christmas lottery numbers are drawn as whole numbers, like raffle tickets. There is an actual ball with the five figure number engraved on it. On 22 December the children from San Ildefonso School pick up the number as it rolls out of a big tombola thing called a bombo. There is another bombo which has balls for all the prizes and they are engraved with cash values. So the first child sings out the number which matches a decimo and a second child sings out a cash amount. Most of the prizes are just 1,000€ but there are five prizes that have a greater value, including el Gordo. As some of the prizes are repeated there are actually 15 "important" numbers as well as lots and lots of other prizes. Bear in mind that there are 1,800 of each number so even if the prize is just 1,000€ there are potentially 1,800 people who will get 100€ back for their 20€ stake. Even if you don't win el Gordo the chances of you getting something back, una pedrea, are much, much higher than in most lotteries

So, all you have to do is go to a lottery administración, to a bar, stop that bloke in the street who has a number in his hat, join a sewing circle or the local Scalextric racers and you'll soon have a decimo. You can even do it online if you want. Once you have your ticket or tickets you just wait till December 22nd. If you want you can watch the draw on the telly or via streaming or listen to it on the radio but most people watch a few minutes and then check their tickets later. As well as the official site all the newspapers and telly channels have online number checkers but if you are digitally challenged just take the number to any lottery shop and they'll tell you if you have a winner or not. 

There is another way you may end up participating in the draw and that is if someone gives you, or sells you, a fraction of a decimo. A very typical example might be that a petrol station gives you a  "participación" for every 50€ worth of petrol you buy. Participaciones/participations vary in value but they are often worth 50c or maybe 1€, though I saw one the other day on sale for 2.40€. What the garage has done is to buy some decimos. They then given away a ticket with the same number. If the garage decimo wins in the lottery then anyone with one of their participaciones can claim their percentage of the winning ticket.

Oh, and if you decide to get your ticket from your favourite bar you could also get involved in another Spanish Christmas tradition; the cesta. Cesta means basket and most bars have a sort of Christmas hamper loaded with food, booze, choccies etc. It's usually just a case of picking a numbered square and writing your name and phone numbers in it. 

There are stacks of older blogs about el gordo and the christmas lottery. Just put the words in the search box at the left top of the page and you'll find several.