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That’s right, crazy time = the Spanish Christmas El Gordo lottery.

You know, the once a year draw with the prize fund of €2.5 BILLION!

This is a behind the scenes video shot during last years draw. The stage is somewhere behind all the mad melee.

If you watch closely you’ll see the school children from San Ildefonso picking up the balls drawn from the machine. It’s tradition that pairs of children from the school are involved every year.

They sing out the winning numbers whilst they deliver each of the lucky winning balls to the officials sat at their desk overseeing the madness.

This is El Gordo – Normal Rules Do Not Apply

For those who haven’t seen it before, the level of excitement is pretty odd just for a lottery draw.

Spain as a whole loves the Christmas El Gordo lottery draw. It’s part of being Spanish to play in the draw.

So it’s also part of being Spanish to spend hours watching the big draw on TV.

And it does take hours too. About 3 hours in all.

That’s because El Gordo pays out thousands of different prizes. And each prize is also drawn out of a ball machine too.

So first they draw a winning number from one machine, then the prize that ball has won from the next machine.

Can You Imagine Watching This Live On TV?

You already know your number has won, but you then have to sit and watch them draw the amount. It could be €100 or it could be €4 Million..!

Now there’s a tense few seconds in anyones life

There are actually hundreds of jackpot prizes too. Nothing massive, just lots of them – which is just the way it should be. (Who cares if 1 person wins 200 Million, I want to see 100 of you win 2 Million!)

Here’s just the top prizes for El Gordo 2011:-

• 180 x €4 Million prizes
• 180 x €1.25 Million prizes
• 180 x €500,000 prizes
• 360 x €200,000 prizes
• 1,440 x €60,000 prizes

There’s about a bajillion more prizes beyond the major ones too.

Playing El Gordo

I always give El Gordo a play. Tickets are more expensive than most lottery draws, but it’s great fun for a once a year punt.

WARNING: Buying El Gordo tickets online is a mine field!

You can buy tickets from various online ticket sellers. But what you get for your money does vary dramatically.

A standard ‘decimo’ ticket costs €20 if you buy it from a vendor in Spain. So if you can, buy them yourself or get a friend in Spain to.

Online, expect to pay double. But don’t get stung by the rip-off companies who charge a lot more than that.

Or if you want the easy option (the one I use these days) join me in one of these El Gordo syndicates. This costs a one-off £20 and gives you a share in 10 decimo tickets. So 10 times the chance of winning.

It’s good honest crazy fun.

You probably won’t see the El Gordo draw live, unless you have a satellite feed from Spain (or er, live there!) – so I’ll make sure I post up a list of all the winning numbers as soon as I have them.

Related posts:

1. Biggest Spanish Fiesta – El Gordo!
2. El Gordo Lottery Results 2009
3. El Gordo Results 2010

I know, I know, the anticipation is killing me too!

So here’s the big ElGordo prize winning numbers:-

Full El Gordo Results

You can download a pdf file of the full El Gordo results if you want to check all the numbers. (Note: right click the link and choose ‘Save Link As’ if you want to keep the file)

Related posts:

1. El Gordo Lottery Results 2009
2. Biggest Spanish Fiesta – El Gordo!
3. El Gordo Draw – Kinda Freaky

The big crazy Spanish Christmas lottery draw is now over for 2009.

Life in Spain can return to normal once more – well, back to preparations for Christmas celebrations anyway.

El Gordo Winning Numbers

The winning number of the big prize was 78294. And winners stories are already beginning to appear. One of the big winners was a work syndicate at troubled Spanish travel company Viajes Marsans. Great news for a company who were in the process of making a large numer of their staff redundant.

There are thousands of numbers, and tens of thousands of prizes with El Gord. If you want to check your numbers here’s the full El Gordo results.

€2.3 Billion of El Gordo Prizes Won

When the dust settles this superdraw lottery will have paid out an incredible 2.3 billion Euros to winners. Just for this one draw. It doesn’t have anything like the biggest jackpot, but it is still the biggest lottery in the world.

Did you play this year? Did you win? Let us know below.

Related posts:

1. El Gordo Results 2010
2. EuroMillions Winner Scoops World Record Jackpot (8 May 2009)
3. Biggest Spanish Fiesta – El Gordo!

Seriously, the entire country comes to a halt when this ONCE A YEAR draw hits.

The draw process takes HOURS because there are so many prizes. It’s quite a bizarre thing to watch the enormous draw machine, with all the results and prizes sung out by children from a local school (El Gordo draw).

It’s THE biggest lottery draw in the world. No other game has a bigger prize fund, OR pays out as many prizes.

Welcome to the Spanish ‘El Gordo’ (or ‘The Fat One’).

World’s Biggest Prize Fund

This draw pays out a prize fund of BILLIONS.

Not millions, but Billions!

But they are clever enough to keep the prizes smaller BUT pay a lot more of them. Unlike certain dumb mega-draws that insist on paying 200 million to just one prize winner… duh!

These are just the bigger prizes:-

• 195 x €3 Million prizes
• 195 x €1 Million prizes
• 195 x €500,000 prizes
• 390 x €200,000 prizes
• 1,560 x €50,000 prizes

World’s LONGEST Draw

And these are genuine different prizes. They draw tens of thousands of numbers from a huge drum, and each one wins a different prize.

The whole draw takes place on TV, and all of Spain is gripped with excitement, for HOURS!

It’s like some weird mass hypnosis voodoo or something.

Strictly Limited Ticket Supply

You can’t pick your numbers with this draw. You can only buy pre-printed tickets. Which means this once a year draw has a limited supply of tickets – by design.

Once they are sold out, that is it.

A large chunk are reserved by Spanish families – some numbers you just cannot ever buy. Seriously!

So if you want to play, now is the time.

I’ve only played this one for the last 2 draws. Last year I found a better supplier which was way cheaper, and I won and got paid a few small prizes.

I’m using the same guys again this year for El Gordo. I reckon the only way to get better value is if you live in Spain! So you can do a LOT worse than play with these guys.

See you in the big draw .

Related posts:

1. NEWS: EuroMillions 3rd Biggest Jackpot Ever
2. El Gordo Draw – Kinda Freaky
3. El Gordo Results 2010

(And yup, that’s how it goes for HOURS..! Every prize and every winning number is drawn – then sung out by kids from the local school. All of Spain is gripped the whole way through.)

El Gordo is the massive once a year Christmas lottery draw – it has a ridiculous prize fund of BILLIONS.

Here’s why I like it though:-

It pays out thousands of big prizes NOT crazy amounts to just a few people. And that means much better chances of winning a big prize – because there are so many more of them. Not to mention the HUGE volume of smaller prizes too.

Makes sense right? (Try telling the folks who run US Mega Millions…)

You have to be careful where you buy tickets for El Gordo though – a lot of online places will charge you stupid amounts.

(I played with these guys last year – good service, decent price, won a few small prizes and got paid promptly – so I’m playing with them again this year).

Bet your country has nothing like this for a lottery draw..?

Related posts:

1. Biggest Spanish Fiesta – El Gordo!
2. El Gordo Lottery Results 2009
3. Should I Play The Same Lottery Numbers In Every Draw?

(I think the OSA stands for ‘Overseas Subscribers Agents’ or something similar)

Because Elaine, a subscriber to my lottery tips newsletter, asked me if they are any good.

Now I know they sell lottery tickets online for lotteries all over the world, and apparently do a lot of postal mailings too.

I’ve personally never used them, but I’m very interested to hear your experiences – because when I looked today…

I Was SHOCKED At The Prices They Charge!

Now Elaine was asking about the massively popular El Gordo Christmas lottery. This is the one that all of Spain go absolutely nuts about – mainly because it has the most ridiculously big prize pool you will have ever seen. I mean, what other lottery in the world has a prize pot of 2.3 BILLION!

The draw date is coming up fast on 22nd December, and tickets supplies are strictly limited for this draw.

So I checked out what OSA Lotteries are charging. And as I said, I was truly shocked. These guys are charging SEVEN TIMES the normal ticket price for their El Gordo lottery groups. No, really! (And their groups are 100 in size – which is too big).

Don’t get me wrong – it’s absolutely fair and necessary to charge extra.

Because there is a lot of admin and other overheads involved in running a lottery group, sourcing the tickets from Spain, checking results, claiming and distributing winnings. Clearly all this costs money.

But then why is it ‘OSA Lotteries’ that the e-Lottery syndicate people can do it all for a lot less than half of what you are charging..?

My advice to Elaine, stuff OSA, grab a place with e-Lottery before they sell out. (That’s what I just did. And if you want a piece of crazy Spanish fun, you’ll do the same)

So what do you think of OSA Lotteries? Have you ever used them? What did they charge, and for how many tickets and what size group?

Related posts:

1. Are The Free Online Lottery Sites Genuine?
2. Which Area Has Had the Most Big Lottery Wins?
3. George W. Bush And The Infrequency Illusion