Spanish Christmas Lottery Tickets: Great Stocking Stuffer

Guess what millions of people want for Christmas? No, not the Kindle Fire HD, iPad Mini, or iPhone 5. All they want is a Spanish Christmas Lottery ticket that offers a €2.52 billion total prize pool, 1 in 7 odds of winning a prize, and 1 in 100,000 odds of winning the jackpot. This year, about 27.5 million winners (up to 360 millionaires among them) will be announced during a three-hour extravaganza on December 22.

The Spanish Christmas Lottery - or El Gordo( "the fat one") - is based on tickets which have five-digit numbers. An entire ticket (billete) costs €200 and is sold as tenths (decimos) at €20 each to be more affordable. Each set of numbers on each ticket is also sold multiple times in several "series." The first prize goes to a single winning number. So if, say, the prize amount was €3 million and there were 180 series of the winning number, the €3 million is paid out 180 times for a total of €540 million. A decimo holder of the winning number wins a tenth of the €3 million or €300,000.

Last year, the lottery paid out €4 million for the 1st prize, that is, €400,000 per decimo ticket. All 1,800 winning tickets were sold in Spain, which won a combined €720 million. No wonder almost everyone in Spain buys a lottery ticket or a share of a ticket, each spending an average of €75. El Gordo offers huge prizes, pays out 70 percent of the winnings tax-free and, with the over 15,000 prize-winning combinations, provides unparalleled winning odds.

Live outside Spain? No worries. You can buy your ticket online at theLotter, which provides secure and convenient purchase of tickets for over 40 of the world's top lotto games. To participate in the Spanish Christmas Lottery, go to the site and select one or more shares with a five-digit code. Your ticket will be scanned to your private account, and winnings transferred directly to you, commission-free.

Tip: Don't wait too long - the drawing date is coming soon and tickets could be sold out! Till then buena suerte!