Spanish Christmas lottery hands out over 2 billion euros

One of the world’s richest lotteries, Spain’s Christmas Lottery dubbed ‘El Gordo’ (The Fat One), took place on Tuesday where over 2 billion euros was won report the Economist.
 
Although the jackpot pales in significance to other worldwide lotteries, ‘El Gordo’ claims to hand out the largest total sum of any other.
 
The annual lottery has become a festive tradition in Spain that amounts to a big family occasion which the majority of Spain now participates in. Beginning at 9am, punters around Spain will crowd television and radio sets to listen to the draw live.
 
The Economist indicates that the winning numbers, 7,8,2,9,4 appeared on 1,950 tickets with each lucky winner standing to win 300,000 euros to spice up their Christmases this year.
 
There were thousands of other winners, and early estimations indicate 2.7 billion euros was spent on buying tickets for the annual event. 70% of the earnings is payout in winnings and the remainder is paid to the state.