The number 06.381 has been awarded with the Christmas Jackpot valued at 3 million euros. It came out in the fourth table at 09:46 hours and is widely distributed throughout the Spanish geography. Although it touched in Puerto de la Cruz, the lottery dealer of administration number 1 of the town in the north of Tenerife returned the winning series.
The autonomous community of Asturias has been the most awarded with the Jackpot this year, since 89 series have been distributed in Nava that will report 267 million euros in prizes, in the administration number 5 of Avilés fifteen series, and in that of Llanes (14 series).
It has also touched in Madrid, Barcelona, Almería, Santiago de Compostela, Talavera, or Teruel. The famous lottery administration of Sort has once again touched fortune. In Bilbao a series of the jackpot was also sold.
The second prize, valued at one million euros, has fallen entirely in Barcelona with the number 55.469.
The third prize, 29.914, was sold in Madrid and Villarreal.
The first fourth prize of the extraordinary Christmas Lottery draw, which is endowed with 200,000 euros per series, has corresponded to the number 69.200 and has been sold in Pamplona and Bilbao. The second fourth prize, widely distributed, is 76.623.
The fifth prizes of 50,000 euros have fallen on the numbers 30.504, 53.238, 05.919, 11.654, 38.169, 57.050, 23.117 and 63.840.
From seven in the morning, the table that authorizes the draw began to be constituted and the president made the corresponding signal to officially start the 197th Christmas draw. From that moment on, the children of San Ildefonso have begun to extract and sing the first numbers and prizes.
This year, just over 2.2 billion euros will be distributed to play among 185 series of tickets with 85,000 numbers each. The reward of El Gordo amounts to 15,000 for each euro played, that is, if we play 20 euros, we can win 300,000.
El Gordo has never fallen on the island, although in 1999 a second prize touched in Arrecife and another in 2005 in Los Valles with a number bought on the peninsula.
Those who buy the Christmas Lottery keep the hope and the illusion that there is the possibility that the boys and girls of San Ildefonso sing the number they have bought, and many, like in the story of the milkmaid, and because dreaming does not cost money, they imagine already before the draw of next December 22 what they would do with those euros.
However, there are some who get too excited and end up spending astronomical amounts of money. This is the case of a buyer who in the administration number 6 of Titerroy disbursed 8,000 euros at once buying 400 different numbers. Although the first impulse is to think that it could be a purchase made for a company, the sellers insist on denying it, since in these cases they point out that they usually take the same numbers. Except for actions like this that surprise even those who dispatch the tickets, in Lanzarote the expenditure made in the Christmas Lottery is below the national average. In the province of Las Palmas in 2006 the average was 30.52 euros per inhabitant, while the national average was 60.68. The delegate of Lotteries and State Betting of Las Palmas, Juan Manuel Moragas, highlights that however, "in games such as the Primitiva and the Bonoloto we are the first".
"For the Christmas lottery, I do spend a lot, because there are always commitments and also exchanges of numbers, people from Las Palmas, from Barcelona, who send me numbers and I buy here and we go halves" says Mario Menchaca, a client of the lottery administration 1 of Arrecife. And it is that this traditional draw entails typical actions of the Christmas dates, such as the purchase of tickets in the workplaces and the exchange of numbers with family and friends to share the luck with the relatives. In total, this year it is expected that sales will increase by 7 percent for the Christmas Lottery. In addition, as Eva Perdomo, in charge of the administration number 6 of Titerroy, points out, this year they have also sold a lot in the peninsula due to the website of the business.
According to the delegate, a first prize has never touched in Lanzarote. But this year, why not, it could be that "the largest lottery in the world", according to Moragas, rewards the island. The total emission of the draw amounts to 3,145,000,000 euros and the amount that is allocated to prizes is an almost impossible figure to pronounce 2,201,500,000 euros (70% of the emission). Although El Gordo has not fallen in this land, there have been strokes of luck such as that of 2005, in which thanks to a neighbor of Los Valles who brought several tenths from the peninsula touched a part of the second prize. Próculo Perdomo, from administration 1 of Arrecife, also remembers that in 1999 the luck fell in administration 3 of the capital that his brother runs, distributing a second prize.
The requested numbers
Among the 85,000 numbers that exist for this draw, in the administrations number 1 and 6 of Arrecife the ones that have been sold the most are those ending in 7,13, 69, 5 and 9. But without a doubt, those that end in 7 are the ones that sweep. "There are none left" says Próculo. The same thing happens in Eva Perdomo's, who points out that those ending in 7 and 9 "are almost sold out since September". Among those that people do not want, Próculo points out that there are the tickets that have repeated numbers.
And as for superstitions, it is also noteworthy the one that refers to natural catastrophes and the dates that mark the informative actuality. Thus, Eva comments that there is the belief that in the places where these misfortunes happen, luck should accompany them and lottery sales skyrocket in these places. This is what happened in Galicia on the occasion of the Prestige oil tanker. The person in charge of the administration also says that in Tenerife the series that carried the date of the floods that devastated the island was sold out. Likewise, Moragas points out that last year many tickets were sold that had the date of the world championship that Fernando Alonso won. Others resort to the time of tempting the Goddess Fortuna to buy dates of births of relatives or wedding dates.
Children's Lottery
The other typical draw of Christmas is the Children's Lottery, which is celebrated on January 6. However, this one is not as successful as the previous one. "If we get something in the Christmas one, we play then the Children's one, and if not, we think about it" says Loli Gómez, a neighbor who walks through Arrecife. And this must be the theory of the majority, since as indicated from the delegation of Las Palmas in this draw each inhabitant spends half as much as in the Christmas one. In addition to being the "second-rate" Lottery, it must also be taken into account that the amount to be distributed is considerably lower, since 770,000,000 euros are distributed in prizes.
We will have to wait until 2008 for the Christmas Jackpot to fall in Lanzarote