World-famous Spanish Christmas lottery organizers “El Gordo” began broadcasting the draw from Madrid’s Teatro Real opera house on Sunday morning, with winnings totaling more than €2.7 billion ($2.8 billion).
Traditionally, students from the San Ildefonso boarding school in Madrid started singing the first winning songs.
Spanish broadcaster RTVE broadcasts the usually hours-long event live, in the presence of approximately 400 spectators. Millions of people are expected to watch the event on television.
Most lottery tickets are sold in Spain, but an increasing number of foreigners participate online.
The lottery, founded more than 200 years ago, is considered the oldest in the world. Due to the total prize money, which increases every year, it is called the largest lottery in the world.
The top prize, called “El Gordo” (the Fat One), is €4 million for a full ticket. This year the amount will be paid out 193 times – eight times more than last year, and as many times as each of the 100,000 ticket numbers has been sold.
The total prize money represents 70% of this year’s sales revenue of €3.86 billion.
Two lottery drums are used in the draw. The first, larger drum contains 100,000 wooden balls with the lottery numbers and the second contains approximately 1,800 wooden balls with the prize amounts.
During the draw, two balls always fall simultaneously from the two drums into a glass bowl. The ceremony lasts at least about three hours, because many smaller prizes are also awarded.
