The El Gordo (The Fat One) Christmas lotto is the most time-honoured lotto draw in Spain with the vast percentage of the country's population partaking.  Believe it or not, this draw has turned out to be a national pastime with 98% of Spain's population taking part.  This is not really unexpected when you hear that the El Gordo lottery is the biggest prize fund lottery game in the world.
 
The average Spanish citizen spends roughly €73 in the Christmas draw and in 2008 the prize fund is estimated to top a massive €2.20 billion.  Here are a number of key features of the El Gordo lottery:
 
· More than 13,000 prizes are paid out.
· It is operated by the Spanish Government.
· There is an excellent 1 in 6 chance of winning a cash prize.
· All prizes are paid out right away and are free of tax for Spain's residents.
· 70% of total ticket sales are paid out in prize money.
 
Ever since December 1812 this Spanish lottery game has followed exactly the same procedure every year.  Two large spherical containers are used; one of them contains tens of thousands of small wooden balls representing all ticket numbers; the other one contains a smaller quantity of wooden balls representing the prizes to be drawn. In the Lotería Nacional hall in Madrid, pupils of the San Ildefonso School (previously reserved for orphans of public servants) draw the numbers and corresponding prizes, singing the results audibly to the considerable on looking crowd while Spanish national TV and radio stations air the event. 

Due to the sheer amount of numbers and prizes, this process takes roughly 3 hours.  In recent years, over 4,800 individual numbers have scooped no less than €1,000 per billete (€100 per décimo) in the Christmas draw.  The individuals who are not lucky enough to grab one of the many prizes time and again make the typical remark that "it's health that really matters". Participants who only get their money back will regularly re-invest the prize in a ticket for El Niño, the second most important draw, held on the 6th of January each year.

The two container routine is the traditional procedure of drawing the numbers in Spanish lotteries but this method is now set aside exclusively for the legendary Christmas lottery draw.  The remainder of the weekly draws as well as the five other yearly El Gordo draws utilize five vessels with 10 balls in each, from where the winning numbers are pulled out.

Lotto shops in Spain mostly only sell tickets for one or two numbers, so the winners of the major prizes often live in the same city or district or work for the same firm.  In 2005, the winning number was sold in the town of Vic in Catalonia (population 37,825), whose inhabitants shared approximately €500 million.

For many years, you could only play the El Gordo if you were a citizen of Spain.  However, with the introduction of lottery ticket sales agents you now have the opportunity to participate in this internationally renowned Spanish lottery regardless of where you reside around the world.  Some international El Gordo syndicates have also been introduced to not only allow more people access to this lotto but to enhance their probability of collecting cash prizes as well.