Working people share El Gordo’

Press, 23 December 1985, Page 10

Working people share El Gordo’

NZPA-Reuter Madrid : i Residents of an artisans* i town in central Spain and i working-class suburbs of c Barcelona and Madrid drew t a windfall at the week-end from the world’s biggest v lottery prize — Spain’s ’ SUSB6 million ($170.28 t million) “El Gordo” (The s Fat One). < Thousands danced in the r streets of Talavera de la v Reina, a town with a popu- v lation of 20,000, where s SUS 64 million ($126.72 i

million) was, shared out among hundreds of people who bought small fractions' of the Christmas Lottery’s winning number — 63369. The remainder of the 550 winning tickets — worth SUSI6O ($316) each and divided in tenths — were sold in the Madrid workingclass suburb of Parla and a residential neighbourhood where an unnamed man won the largest individual share, SUSI million ($1.98 million).

Residents of a workingclass suburb of Barcelona drew most of the SUS 43 million ($85.14 million) second prize. - The country halted at 7.30 am. (local time) as girls and boys of the San Idelfonso orphanage spun giant steel tombolas to draw 570,000 prizes worth SUS4OO million ($792 million). This year Spaniards spent a record SUSS6O million ($llOB.B million) as families, offices and villages

followed the annual ritual of clubbing together to buy shares in the 66,000 tickets. Spaniards take their “El Gordo” very seriously and, through a mixture of mathematics and superstition, choose numbers they reserve months in advance and, in many cases, keep in the family for generations. At least one family got its reward. In 1978 a bank clerk became a millionaire with the same number which, 22 years earlier, had made his

father a rich man. Lottery officials believe that the tradition of “El Gordo” breeds a spirit of generosity and say Spaniards are happiest when the prize is shared out or goes to those who do not have much. , . '

Last year scores of debtstricken farmers in northern Spain hit the jackpot after a savings bank had distributed the winning number as Christmas presents to its customers.