Segovia Wins Big In Spanish Lottery
A town with a fairy tale castle emerged as a big winner Friday in Spain's $1.14 billion Christmas lottery, billed as the world's richest.
In homes, offices and coffee shops, Spaniards remained glued to their TV sets as the winning numbers trickled from a giant gold tumbler. Many liked what they saw: The annual lottery is based on a complex system of number-sharing that shuns jackpots and instead seeks to spread wealth among millions of people holding numbers ranging from 00001 to 66000.
The annual lottery - known as El Gordo - The Fat One - is as sacred to Spaniards as the Super Bowl is to Americans and lasts almost as long, three hours. Following a 188-year-old tradition, the numbers are literally sung out by children from a Madrid elementary school that used to be an orphanage.
Of them, about 2,000 numbers win some kind of prize, anything from the face value of a coupon - $17 - up to $170,000 for a first-prize coupon.
Complicating matters further, each of the 66,000 lottery numbers is repeated 1,550 times. And people often pitch in to buy a coupon together, so windfalls ripple through towns, offices and homes. Winnings are tax-free.
All 1,550 coupons bearing this year's first-prize number - 49740 - were sold in Segovia, a small town about 60 miles north of Madrid. It is best known for its Roman aqueduct and 16th-century castle - a sandy-colored edifice with slender, slate spires.
Segovia's winnings totaled $255 million, roughly $5,000 per inhabitant.
One particularly fortunate group was the 40-strong staff of the local traffic police, who had teamed up to test their luck. Each now stands to collect more than $165,000.
"We are trying to keep doing our jobs and attend to the public," spokesman Abilio Sanz said from police headquarters over the sound of laughter. "But things are a little abnormal here today."
Spaniards are lottery-crazed, spending money year-round on half a dozen of them. But they go all out at Christmas, lottery officials say, with half of the country's 40 million people taking part in El Gordo and ponying up an average of about $44. The morning newspaper El Mundo puts out a special afternoon supplement just to report the lucky numbers.
Spaniards have been waxing nostalgic about this year's lottery because it is the last time the children who sing out the numbers with a specific, time-honored cadence that never varies will do it in pesetas.
Starting next year, they'll give the amounts in euros, and many Spaniards say it just won't be the same thing.
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