The El Gordo Lottery
El Gordo Lottery wiki
The name El Gordo is dated many years back. Due to this, the details of this surname have not been easy to trace. The term comes from a trade. The El Gordo family is known to have moved from country to country thus it cannot be deduced precisely which country this name had originally existed. However, surnames during this time did not change as it entered another country. The word El Gordo means ‘the big one’. No doubt El Gordo is the biggest and richest world lottery.
This game is played a little different from other lottery games. It’s played by use of tickets which are normally bought by the players. They are either bought as a whole commonly known as ‘billete’ or by buying in fractions of the full ticket that is tenths commonly known as ‘decimos’. Winning the game with a ‘decimo’ simply means you’ll go away with a tenth of the price value. Tickets are printed in large, usually in groups of different series such that a number in one series can be found in other series. If a number is drawn out, a certain number of full tickets with that particular number will win that particular prize. Therefore, a lucky player will win themselves tax-free cash if they will be able to match any of the numbers drawn out. The numbers are not selected by the players, but they simply buy tickets with the number already on the tickets.
Draws in the game also take place in a rather attractive way. El Gordo Navidad plays last, over three hours in average using two balls known as ‘bombos’. One of the balls draws the winning number while the other draws the prize value. The draw takes place in Madrid. School children from Ildefonso School draw out the numbers and corresponding prizes and sing the results aloud in front of the public. This is usually part of the El Gordo tradition. Broadcasting channels airs the entire draw. The people attending the event must be clad in lottery-based clothing and have hats.
Draws are also done place weekly and extraordinary draws during the year. This draws use ten ‘bombos’ out of which the five figures of the winning number are drawn. This is a little different from the Christmas lottery which uses two ‘bombos’. It’s also known as the El Gordo Navidad. It’s the biggest draw of the year that takes place during Christmas. People get together and watch the draw from start to the end which has duration of about 3 to 4 hours. This is due to the sheer number of prizes. The children do 8 to 9 shifts equivalent to the number of frames to be drawn. El Gordo is a very social game. People not only play it but can also watch together with family and friends.
Check out the Three days to go until the Spanish ElGordo Navidad draw as well.
