El Gordo de Navidad is one of the most popular Spanish lotteries, played annually on 22nd December. The draw - which translates to The Christmas Jackpot – has developed into a Spanish tradition, becoming one of the country’s most important and most played lotteries.
Known as the Sorteo Extraordinario de Navidad, it’s a special lottery because although it only takes place once a year, it is played by large groups of people – sometimes even entire towns and villages. It’s considered one of the largest and noteworthy draws in the world, gaining a huge following from players across the globe.
This Spanish game doesn't follow the normal gameplay of a lottery where players have to select numbers. Instead, the El Gordo de Navidad is played as a raffle. Tickets are printed and sold in a series of numbers, meaning you purchase pre-printed tickets that come with numbers you didn't personally choose. The number of series changes each year, meaning there can be 180 or more people with the same ticket number.
If a particular number is drawn out during the El Gordo de Navidad results, all the tickets from all the series with that number automatically win the corresponding prize. This is one of the reasons why it’s considered the biggest lottery in the world, with billions of Euros worth of prizes on offer due to the large number of series and the jackpot prize of €4million per series.
There are many other Spanish lotteries which take place annually, such as El Nino in January, but the El Gordo de Navidad is by far the most popular of them all. It has become part of Spanish culture, as not only does it give players the chance to win impressive prizes, but it also brings a social element as people tend to play and watch the results together.
This game can be played from anywhere in the world nowadays, with high odds of winning and an enormous number of prizes on offer. If you would like to learn more about playing this exciting lottery, please click here.
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