WHAT WITH the global financial crisis and collapse of the property market, it has been a lean year in Spain. But for those lucky enough to win a share of the massive lottery prize known as El Gordo, or the Fat One, Christmas started with a sudden dose of cheer yesterday.
The Fat One showered €2.15 billion in prize money across the country. It brought tears of relief to some winners and champagne-soaked pledges to meet debts from others.
The world's biggest lottery payout has ushered in the Spanish Christmas season since it was first drawn in 1812. But rarely has the prize money, spread among tens of thousands of people, been so eagerly welcomed.
"Everybody says they are going to use it to get themselves out of problems," said Madrid lottery seller Rosario Rueda. Her shop in the working-class Embajadores district of Madrid was just one place where the pavements were sticky with champagne yesterday.
From villages in northwestern Galicia and southern Andalucia to the centre of Barcelona, the arrival of prize money was being celebrated with glee - and relief.
In Barcelona, where much of the prize money fell, Pakistani immigrant Shalim Ahmed was proudly waving a savings bank book where the balance had jumped from €17 to €300,017.
"To hell with the crisis," said another winner in Barcelona, Juan Fernández, who shaved the winning number - 32365 - into his hair. "I lost my job recently. I'm going out tonight and I'll blow the rest on doing up my car and buying a flat."
Isabel Moliner, whose shop on Barcelona's Las Ramblas sold many of the winning tickets, said some had gone to tourists.
This year Spaniards spent €60 each on tickets. For the first time in many years, however, there was a fall in the overall amount spent, which nevertheless was estimated at more than €2.8 billion.
The complex system means the prizes are measured in thousands, or hundreds of thousands, of euro rather than in millions. For some 2,000 holders of a decimo, as a €20 stake in a lottery number is called, yesterday's winning number was worth €300,000.
The biggest winner was the Spanish exchequer. It kept the 30 per cent of money not handed back as prizes, more than €800 million. - (Guardian service)