Malaga Wins Over 9.75 Million In El Gordo – The Christmas Lottery makes more millionaires every year than any other lottery in the world
Malaga Wins Over 9.75 Million In El Gordo
Today’s El Gordo lottery draw has produced a great result for the Malaga province. 04536 is the second prize number, won by ticket holders in the Malaga area, who will claim €9.75 million between them.
Fuengirola
Winners in Fuengirola will claim the lion’s share of the prize money. €6.25 million has been won by people in Fuengirola taking part in El Gordo this year.
Winners
El Gordo winning tickets have also been bought in Malaga city, Velez-Malaga, Alfarnate, Antequera, Marbella, Sabinillas, Estepona, La Cala Del Moral, and Torremolinos. The winning number was announced at 11.21am today.
Scams
Anyone can play El Gordo, and there are people who take part from all over the world. This does open the lottery up to scammers who try to exploit people who may not understand how El Gordo works. Winning up to €2500 are tax free, and anything over that amount is taxed 20%. This tax is taken from the winnings. If you receive an email saying that you have won a prize, and to claim it you must first pay the 20% tax, this is a scam.
What Is El Gordo?
The world’s biggest lottery is in Spain and it is called the “Lotería de Navidad” – the Spanish Christmas lottery. The nickname is El Gordo, which means “fatty” or “the fat one.” This nickname is both for the entire lottery and the winning first prize number. The lottery got the the Gordo name because the total prize money is over 2 billion euro. In 2016 the total prize amount is 2,310 billion out of 3.3 billion euro worth of tickets sold. This makes El Gordo the biggest lottery draw in the world.
El Gordo is actually the nickname of the first prize winning ticket number, rather than the whole lottery. 2011 was the first of the “fattest” El Gordo in history called “El Gorda más gorda de la historia.” The biggest winning number in 2011 paid out 4 million euros. And that figure stayed the same since then, so in 2016 the biggest winning number also pays 4 million euros. The second prize pays out 1.250.000 euro. The total prize amount in 2016 will be 2.3 billion euros that can be won by around 15,000 winning ticket numbers in different amounts
El Gordo Tickets
In Spain you can buy El Gordo tickets at lottery offices, on high streets and at many tobacconist shops called Estancos. Some of the places that sell El Gordo tickets are considered “lucky” for one reason or another and people stand in line for hours to buy a ticket there.
El Gordo tickets start selling months in advance. Many businesses like bars offer parts of tickets called participaciones. You can also buy El Gordo tickets online if you are in Spain and if you want to buy from outside Spain, there are various websites that offer El Gordo tickets, but be sure to check them to avoid fraud.
El Gordo Numbers
The numbering system of El Gordo is quite complex. You don’t pick your own numbers. For El Gordo you buy a pre-printed ticket with your number. There are 100,000 different numbers in the Spanish Christmas lottery. These 100,000 numbers range from 00000 to 99999 and are on the lottery balls which tumble around inside a giant rotating drum on the day of the El Gordo lottery draw. Each lottery ticket number has a picture of a Christmas nativity scene and the pictures change every year. On 22nd December every year the winning numbers are drawn.
El Gordo Tickets
A series is like an A4 sheet with 10 smaller tickets on it. A full ticket sheet called billete costs €200. Each billete ticket sheet is divided into ten smaller tickets called “décimos” which cost 20 euros each. Most people buy a “décimo”, which like a full lottery ticket, but as explained above a “décimo” is technically a tenth of a ticket. So if your number wins El Gordo you will get 4,000,000 euros but if you only have a décimo you get a tenth which is 400,000 euro for your decimo ticket.
In 2016 the first prize of El Gordo went to a single winning number and the 1st prize amount was 4 million euros. There were 165 series’ of the 1st prize number, so the 4 million will be paid 165 times to a full sheet or ticket with the 1st prize number. So the total payout to the first prize El Gordo winning number is 165 x 4 million = 660 million euros.
People holding a billete with 10 “décimo” tickets of the 1st prize number in 2016 would win the corresponding amount of the 4 million prize because they have one of the 165 series with the wining number. And a “décimo” which is a tenth of the 1st prize number will win €400,000 in 2016.
Written by Dave James
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