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Owners
of a lottery office celebrate after selling the first Christmas lottery prize "El
Gordo" in La Eliana, near Valencia, eastern Spain, Spain, Monday Dec. 22,
2014. (AP Photo/Alberto Saiz)
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Spaniards
who bought lottery tickets in an upper middle class Madrid neighbourhood hit
the jackpot on Monday, getting 400,000-euro (US$490,000) payoffs from a 2.5
billion-euro (US$3 billion) pot of cash that will be divided among thousands of
ticketholders.
AP reports more
than 100 of the top winning tickets were sold in the downtown neighbourhood,
though 20 were also purchased in the southern city of Cadiz and a handful were
sold in other cities across the nation.
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|
The
owners of a lottery office celebrates after selling the first Christmas lottery
prize "El Gordo" in La Eliana, near Valencia, eastern Spain, Spain,
Monday Dec. 22, 2014. (AP Photo/Alberto Saiz)
|
Unlike
lotteries that offer one large jackpot or just a few big winning tickets,
Spain's Christmas season "El Gordo" (The Fat One) lottery distributes
prizes to thousands of people, with other winning tickets shelling out tens of
thousands or hundreds of euros.
It's
the world's richest lottery and Spaniards were glued to televisions as awards
were announced in a drawing program that lasted four hours.
Before
Spain's economic implosion in 2008, winners often splurged on new cars, beach
homes or vacations. Now many use winnings to pay off debt.
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