Deserving Winners
Source: dylan nolte on Unsplash
Spain’s El Gordo lottery dishes out Christmas joy with €2.5bn pot
Unemployed mother of two is among winners as world’s biggest lottery hands out prizes of up to €325,000
A Gambian man who crossed from the Mediterranean by boat and an unemployed mother of two were among those rejoicing after the world’s biggest lottery sprayed money across Spain.
On Thursday, the country celebrated the Christmas lottery known as El Gordo, or the Fat One, which dished out €2.5bn (£2.2bn) in prize money.
The most sought-after ticket – worth €325,000 after taxes – was sold in cities across the country, setting off raucous celebrations that spanned from the north-western city of A Coruña to Almería in the south.
As the numbers were called out in Madrid’s Teatro Real theatre, the audience erupted into wild cheers as they realised a member of the audience was among the lucky ones holding a winning ticket.
Perla Gavidia, originally from Peru, later told reporters she had lost her job at a cafe two years earlier. “I felt [the prize] would strike me here today,” she said she choked back tears. The windfall would be used to buy herself a flat in Madrid and pay for her children’s studies, she added.
Spain’s Christmas lottery tradition, which dates back to 1812, sees relatives, co-workers, friends and members of social and sport clubs pool their funds together to buy tickets. This year was no exception, as people across Spain sought respite after a year racked by soaring prices on food and fuel.
Stories of the winners dominated Spanish media on Thursday. In Catalonia, musician Ibrahim Cante said he would put his winnings of €125,000 towards investing in a studio. “It’s the first time I bought a lottery ticket since arriving in 2017,” he said excitedly.
Originally from the Gambia, Cante told broadcaster TVE that he had spent five years traversing various countries in Africa before making the treacherous Mediterranean crossing from Libya to Italy. He eventually travelled by bus to Spain.
Not all of the stories were joyous, however. At an underground car park in Madrid where 2,000 employees of a public company in Madrid were celebrating a win of at least €25,000 each – offering up rounds of karaoke, conga lines and cava – a handful of glum-faced employees wandered around, perhaps hinting at office tensions to come.
They were the unlucky ones, the ones that had not bought tickets. “I’m a scientist and this goes against statistics,” one told the newspaper El País. Another said she had started at the consulting company just six weeks earlier. “I would have liked to buy it but by the time I found out, it was too late.”
Their sombre faces, however, did little to dampen the mood in the car park. “We realised we had won because all of a sudden we started to hear screams in the office,” said one employee.
“It’s a shared joy, which is the best thing,” added another. “It’s time to celebrate.”
Comments
It´s always the same story. Everyone pays money, like taxes, and only a handful of lucky people charge. There are always sentimental events to you think that your spending is deserving, like Mrs. Gavidia and Mr. Cante. I prefer that my "taxes" -ticket- increase the prize for these people -deserving winners- better that for rich men.
Spain´s Christmas lottery is more a social phenomenon than a lottery. It´s incredible. You have to buy tickets of Christmas lottery for your families, friends, buddies, coworkers and neighbours because you know that they are going to give tickets too. Thats´s right. Then, everybody invests around 100 euros, at least, on Christmas lottery in Spain, therefore, the Spanish spend millions of euros in lottery. It´s not strange that Spanish lottery is the most expensive lottery in the world.
In any case, we can spend these millions of euros on things more interesting like health, culture or science. It´s said that humble people spend more money in lottery than wealthy people, precisely, due to their bad situation. Neither I understand it.
See you.
What drives me crazy in the days leading up to the 22nd December are clips of the schoolchildren singing the winning numbers of the lottery. It makes me want to smash the TV screen in.
It´s always the same story. Everyone pays money, like taxes, and only a handful of lucky people charge. There are always sentimental events to make you think that your spending is worthwhile, like Mrs. Gavidia and Mr. Cante. I prefer that my "taxes" -ticket- increase the prize for these people -deserving winners- rather than it going to the already well-off.
Spain´s Christmas lottery is more a social phenomenon than a lottery. It´s incredible. You have to buy tickets of Christmas lottery for your family/relatives, friends, buddies, coworkers and neighbours because you know that they are going to give tickets too. Thats´s right. So everybody invests around at least 100 euros on the Christmas lottery in Spain, therefore, the Spanish spend millions of euros on the lottery. It´s not strange that the Spanish lottery is the biggest lottery in the world.
In any case, we can spend those millions of euros on more interesting things like health, culture or science. It´s said that the poorest in society spend more money on the lottery than the wealthy, precisely, due to their bad situation. Neither do I understand.