El Gordo Top Tier Prize Winners Take Home €400,000 Each

By Brodey Sheppard - December 28, 2016

People in Spain and around the world celebrated when the numbers of the top prize tier for El Gordo was announced last Thursday, 22 December 2016. The winning numbers, 66513, were printed on 1,650 tickets. Every player who bought the tickets bearing the winning numbers get to take home €4 million!

El Gordo is considered the biggest Christmas lottery in the world. It does not offer a single jackpot. Instead, thousands get to share the massive prize pool. This year, the prize pool amounted to a whopping €2.31 billion!

Typically, the winning tickets for El Gordo were distributed in various lottery offices around the country. However, this year, the organisers shared that they were all sold through one office in Madrid. Weeks before the 22 December draw, long queues formed outside the lottery booths. Last Thursday, the students from Madrid’s San Idelfonso School sung out the prize ticket numbers. The draw was held at the Teatro Real opera house and it was broadcasted on national television.

El Gordo Awards a Struggling Spanish Town With Considerable Prize

As of this writing, €56 million has been paid out by the annual Christmas lottery to winners from the struggling town of Pinos Puente in the province of Granada. Almost a third of the population of this municipality is unemployed so having 451 “decimos” of the second prize tiers definitely was a huge impact to the community. The winning numbers, 04536, paid each ticket owner €1.25 million.

When the lottery results came out, residents flocked the streets to celebrate, dance and sing together. A lot of the winners came from financially struggling families. In an interview with AFP news agency, Mayor Jose Enrique Medina said, “It is a lot of money for a town that has been punished hard. The prize money was widely distributed, it went to many families that really needed it.”

You Too Can Join El Gordo

There are a lot of reasons why you should join El Gordo online. For instance, it is one of the longest standing lotteries in the world. For over a century, the Spanish lottery contest has been selling tickets to people who wants to get a share of the massive prize pool. Spaniards are not the only ones who love the game. Millions of people in more than 140 countries join the contest every year in hopes of winning the El Gordo.

One of the reasons why you should join El Gordo is the fact that it is the lottery contest that features the biggest lotto jackpots in the world. At times, the prize pool for the game reaches a whopping €3.6 billion and thousands of players get to share 70% of the amount. This means that compared to other lottery contests, you have better chances of winning when you join El Gordo. The first prize tier usually awards €400,000 to every winner while the second prize winners usually take home €125,000 each.

El Gordo is also one of the pioneers in online lotto. Since 1996, the game has been available online for players around the world. This means that as long as you have an Internet connection along with a laptop or a mobile device, you will be able to purchase tickets. There are online lotto concierge services which purchase tickets for the players so that they can play even in the comfort of their own home. You can be located in the UK, South Africa or any part of the world and still stand a chance at winning the massive prize!