The El Gordo Christmas Draw.
Watch as Spain (and now Europe) goes plain crazy over the Massive El Gordo Prize Pool.
Even in these days of huge lottery jackpots, the El Gordo Christmas lottery draw makes all others look like a lucky dip! The prize pot is always over a billion Euros, yes, a BILLION! The actual draw for El Gordo brings Spain to a complete standstill every Christmas.
The 2009 Christmas draw paid out a stunning 3.2 billion Euros. although El Gordo in 2010 looks set to be only around 2.3 billion 
The exciting thing about this size of prize pool is that the number of prizes are far greater than any normal lottery draw as here, there are literally hundreds of jackpot prizes!
Below are just some of the bigger prizes from recent draws:-
195 €3 Million prizes
195 €1 Million prizes
195 €500,000 prizes
390 €200,000 prizes
1,560 €50,000 prizes
You can also win so many €1,000 Euro prizes that it’s hard to imagine you wont win at least one.
The draw is conducted according to a two hundred years old tradition with small wooden balls drawn from two large golden cages.The draw is conducted with help from the children of San Ildefonso school in Madrid.
They take it in turns to draw balls and then sing out the winning numbers and the prizes. This whole process goes on for an amazing 3 hours, avidly watched by the 98% of Spanish people who play every El Gordo Christmas lottery draw.
The larger cage contains all the possible numbers from the draw, while the smaller are the actual prizes they win. So when a number is drawn the corresponding number is the prize that is won.
So you hear your number called, YES! But then imagine having to wait until you hear if you have won a thousand Euros or a few million!
The lottery works by using a number of 5 digit balls, instead of, say 1 to 49 like most other lotteries.
When you buy a ticket you are given a specific number, eg. 21708.
Supply is pretty limited, so each number only appears on just ten tickets.You can also buy a part of a ticket.
Each ticket can be broken down into 10 decimos, a bit like a sub-ticket. So you can buy just one decimo or 10 if you want yo purchase the whole ticket. The prizes are split between all holders of the decimos for each numbered ticket.
Buying El Gordo Tickets
Outside of Spain it can be difficult to buy tickets with some sellers charging an additional premium.
Charging extra is of course fine, within reason, as there are costs to cover but you should always look closely at what you are getting for your money or play in a reliable syndicate where you can be sure you get good value for your money.
