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. Biggest Spanish Fiesta – El Gordo!
2. El Gordo Draw – Kinda Freaky
3. EuroMillions Winner Scoops World Record Jackpot (8 May 2009)

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. El Gordo Lottery Results 2009
2. El Gordo Draw – Kinda Freaky
3. NEWS: EuroMillions 3rd Biggest Jackpot Ever

(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. El Gordo Lottery Results 2009
2. Biggest Spanish Fiesta – El Gordo!
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?

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