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Read more with google mobile : Spanish stuff 'Fat One' Christmas lottery, despite slowdown

Navigation Primary Navigation Home Singapore Asia Pacific World Business Entertainment Sports Technology Top Stories Most Popular Secondary Navigation Asia Pacific World Search Search: Spanish stuff 'Fat One' Christmas lottery, despite slowdown AFP - 1 hour 46 minutes ago MADRID (AFP) - - The Spanish are stuffing "El Gordo" or "The Fat One", the annual Christmas lottery billed as the world's richest, despite a global economic slowdown that has saddled Spain with Europe's highest unemployment rate. The strong demand bucks the trend in other major European nations where cash-strapped consumers have dropped lottery tickets from holiday shopping lists, causing a noticeable slump in sales. An estimated four in five Spaniards bought tickets for the lottery in 2007, spending on average 64 euros (88 dollars) each for a total of 2.87 billion euros. The state lottery commission predicts they will spend roughly the same amount this year despite hard times. Why? Partly because "El Gordo" is a strong tradition stretching back to 1812, said commission head Gonzalo Fernandez Rodriguez. It has become as much a part of Christmas as the Biblical Magi -- the three wise men who in Spain bring children gifts on January 6 to mark the Christian feast of the Epiphany -- and Cava, Spain's version of champagne, he said. "It is difficult to conceive of Christmas in Spain without the Christmas lottery," Rodriguez told AFP. "El Gordo" is also designed to give as many people as possible a windfall just before the holidays. A whopping 70 percent of the intake goes back into cash prizes -- far more than in other state-run lotteries used to finance social projects. Instead of a few jackpots, there are millions of cash prizes ranging from the 20-euro face value of a ticket to 300,000 euros for the first-prize number. The draw is always held on December 22, three days before Christmas. This year just over 26 million prizes worth a total of 2.32 billion euros will be doled out, nearly double the amount distributed a decade ago. Although other draws around the world have bigger individual top prizes, lottery specialists rank "El Gordo" as the world's richest lottery for the total sum paid out. Tickets go on sale in July. Co-workers, friends and relatives across the country pitch in to buy them together, and cafes and bars sell shares in their tickets to their clients. On the morning of the draw, Spain comes to a virtual standstill as crowds huddle around television sets and radios in bars, living rooms and offices for more than three hours to see who gets lucky. Even the way the winners are named is special, and a nod to Spain's Catholic heritage. The numbers and the prize amounts are sung out -- in Gregorian-style chant -- by pairs of children from Madrid's centuries-old San Ildefonso primary school, a former orphanage. With Spain posting an unemployment rate of 12.8 percent in October -- the highest rate in the 27-nation European Union -- as a decade-long property boom comes to a screeching halt, the economic slowdown has served as a selling point for tickets this year. "For the mortgage! I have 'El Gordo' for the mortgage," a ticket seller named Marta called out recently to passersby dodging the rain on the busy Puerta del Sol square in the heart of the Spanish capital. "Of course in the back of your mind there is always the hope that you might get lucky and all your worries will go away," said 27-year-old Arantxa Jimenez, who wore a bright red scarf against the cold as she waited in a long line outside the entrance to the "Dona Manolita" ticket shop. The shop regularly posts one of the country's highest ticket sales for "El Gordo". But this year sales are even higher after the shop sold one of the top-prize tickets in 2007. "We usually say we don't sell lottery tickets, we sell hope," shop manager Concha Corona told the El Pais daily last month, "although this year we can say we also sell mortgages." The faith in "El Gordo" is such that after Japanese auto maker Nissan announced in October it would cut 1,680 jobs at its Barcelona factory, the workers there pooled together to buy tickets with the number 01680, Spanish media reported. Since 2005 tickets for the lottery have also been sold over the Internet, drawing in younger customers and simplifying purchase by allowing credit card payments. The buying frenzy in Spain contrasts with that in Germany, Europe's largest economy, where demand for all lottery tickets is down, or in France where households spend on average about half of what those in Spain do on lottery tickets and gambling. "Lottery sales in Germany depend on the economic climate. Now it is not good and here people prefer to save," a spokesman for the German state lottery commission told AFP. Spanish households dedicate about 2.0 percent of their budget to lottery tickets and other forms of gambling, one of the highest rates in Europe, compared to 0.9 percent in France, according to a French senate report issued last year. The average spending for the oldest 25 members of the European Union is 1.0 percent while Polish households spent 0.3 percent, one of the lowest rates, it said. Email Story IM Story Printable View Blog This Recommend this article Average (0 votes) Sign in to recommend this article » Most Recommended Stories » Related Articles: Entertainment & Lifestyle Film workers protest against strike at SAG meetingAP - 33 minutes ago From opera to pop, live arts test new business model on screenAFP - 1 hour 2 minutes ago Fox TV producers asked to trim budgets 2 percentAP - 2 hours 10 minutes ago Getty endowment drops by 25 percentAP - Thursday, December 18 Montag, Pratt nuptials questionedAP - Thursday, December 18 Enlarge Photo People queue to buy tickets for the annual Christmas lottery "El Gordo" in Madrid, on December 17. "El Gordo" is designed to give as many people as possible a windfall just before the holidays. A whopping 70 percent of the intake goes back into cash prizes -- far more than in other state-run lotteries used to finance social projects. 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