El Gordo – e-Lottery’s New Syndicate Game
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 residents taking part. As it happens, this draw has become a national diversion with 98% of Spain’s population partaking. This is not really remarkable when you consider that the El Gordo is the largest prize fund lotto game in the world.
The average Spanish citizen spends around £73 in the Christmas draw and in 2008 the prize fund is projected 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 outstanding 1 in 6 probability of scooping a cash prize.
- All prizes are paid out immediately and are free of tax for Spain’s residents.
- 70% of the revenue generated by ticket sales is paid out in prize money.
Since way back in December 1812 this Spanish lottery game is operated according to exactly the same procedure each year. Two huge circular 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 (formerly reserved for orphans of public servants) draw the numbers and corresponding prizes, singing the results audibly to the huge Madrid crowd while Spanish national TV and radio stations air the
event.
Due to the considerable amount of numbers and prizes, this process takes about 3 hours. In recent years, in excess of 4,800 individual numbers have won no less than £1,000 per billete (£100 per décimo) in the Christmas draw. Those who do not win time and again come out with the typical comment that "it’s health that really matters". Individuals who just get their money back will frequently re-invest the winnings in a ticket for El Niño, the second most significant draw, which takes place on January the 6th every year.
The two vessel system is the long-established procedure of drawing the numbers in Spanish lotteries but this method is now reserved only for the famous Christmas draw. The rest of the weekly draws as well as the five other yearly El Gordo draws use five vessels with 10 balls in each, from where the winning numbers are selected.
Lottery retailers in Spain generally only sell tickets for one or two numbers, so the winners of the major prizes frequently reside in the same town or neighbourhood 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 scooped in the region of £500 million.
For many years, you could only play the El Gordo lottery if you were a Spanish resident. However, with the introduction of lottery ticket sales agents you are now able to participate in this globally celebrated Spanish lottery regardless of where you live globally.
In December 2008 e-Lottery is launching an El Gordo syndicate that will not only be for the citizens of Spain but also lottery players around the world. Anyone who decides to join one of these syndicates will be playing the El Gordo with a 20 times greater chance of sharing the jackpot compared to everyone buying tickets the normal way.
e-Lottery is no newcomer to the lottery market and has been operating the e-Lottery syndicate system successfully around the world since 2002. Its current product range includes syndicates for both the UK lotto as well as the Euromillions.
In just 6 years since the start of operations e-Lottery has built a membership of in excess of 195,000 individuals. With the introduction of the world famous El Gordo lottery the e-Lottery customer base is about to see a considerable increase.
If you are interested in increasing your chances of sharing in some of the biggest lottery jackpots worldwide, come and take a close look at e-Lottery. If you are looking to develop a new income stream take a good look at the e-Lottery affiliate programme where you can earn an on-going monthly income by introducing individuals to the e-Lottery syndicate system.