El Gordo is, literally, "the fat one." Specifically, it is the Spanish Christmas lottery, one of the oldest and largest in the world. Sponsored by ONCE, the Organización Nacional de Ciegos Españoles (Spanish National Organization for the Blind), El Gordo began in 1812. This year it will pay out over 3 billion euros to over 1,202,490 winners in Spain and 140 other countries around the world.
It costs about 200€ to buy a whole ticket in El Gordo, but each ticket is printed ten times and sold in tenths, so you can buy a tenth of a ticket, a decimo, for 20€. The other nine-tenths of your ticket are sold to others, so if your number is drawn, you will share the prize with others. Often, colleagues from the same workplace or club, or a family, will join together to buy a whole ticket. Imagine the joy in a company or family if their ticket is one of the big winners!
One in every three tickets wins a prize, and 70% of all monies invested in El Gordo are returned to players in cash prizes. That still leaves a hefty sum for ONCE's philanthropic work of supporting the blind.
The big drawing for El Gordo takes place every year on December 22. They'll start pulling numbers soon, and it will take three hours before they are done. This is the real start of the Christmas holidays in Spain. Especially if you win.
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