El Gordo is the Spanish lottery game with huge prizes. It has become a national obsession in Spain where numbers are even reserved and passed down through the generations. Unlike other lotteries there is only a limited supply of each possible number drawn. So once those numbers have been bought nobody else can have them.

Spanish Christmas Lottery

The El Gordo Christmas draw is the most exciting. It used to be the only one but a Summer draw was introduced, then others making 6 draws a year. But that Spanish Christmas draw remains the most exciting by far.

It really is the big one – with a prize pool normally over TWO BILLION EUROS!

Millions Of Prizes

Here’s why El Gordo is so popular – the sheer number of prizes is staggering.

There are 195 jackpots for a start – each of 3 million Euros. Then another 195 second prizes of 1 million Euros. Then 195 prizes of half a million Euros. And so it goes on, there are literally millions of actual prizes paid out..!

That’s enough to get anyone excited about playing.

Buying El Gordo Tickets

If you’re not in Spain, you need to be careful. There are online ticket sellers that charge very high prices. It’s OK to charge more than the face price of a ticket but some will charge you five or even more times the real price!

And tickets can be confusing as they are sold as either full tickets or ‘decimas’ (which are only one tenth of a ticket, paying one tenth of the prize for each one held).

So please don’t get caught out.

El Gordo Syndicates

The safest way I have found to play is through a reliable lottery syndicate – which also gives you a better chance of winning of course.

If you personally know someone who runs an El Gordo syndicate, I recommend joining them.

But if you don’t, I personally play with these guys and can recommend them: http://www.el-gordo-syndicate.com