The Extraordinary Christmas Draw is one of the most popular lottery draws in Spain. Like every year, it is celebrated on December 22, and there are many Spaniards who buy at least a tenth in the hope that they will win “el Gordo.” But how many chances are there of winning something in the Christmas Lottery?
From the National Mint and Stamp Factory, this 2024, 193 million Christmas Lottery tickets have been put on sale (193 series of 100,000 numbers each). The number of printed tickets that there are already allows us to get an idea of ​​how unlikely it is that we will win. But that does not stop the majority of Spaniards from having the dream that someday it will be their year.
In the Christmas Lottery, the most notable prize is “el Gordo”. There is only one winning number per year and 4 million euros are distributed per series (20,000 per euro played). That is, each tenth is equivalent to 400,000 euros if you happen to be the big winner. Of the second and third prizes there is also only one number for each, with a value of 1,250,000 and 500,000 euros per series respectively.
For both “El Gordo” and the second and third prizes, there is a 0.0001% chance that you will win. That is, statistics indicate that there is a one in 100,000 chance that your ticket will turn out to be the first prize, and the same probability that you will win the second or third prize.
But every year many more prizes are distributed in the Extraordinary Christmas Draw in Spain. Therefore, if we add up the chances of getting pinched are somewhat better. That is what makes many continue playing and not lose hope of at least having a good feast at Christmas.
Odds of having a winning tenth of the Christmas Lottery
There is only one number with the first, second and third prize of the Extraordinary Christmas Draw. But there is more luck with fourths, fifths, stones and approaches, hundreds, last two and returns.
According to calculations, there are 15,304 numbers that receive some money in exchange. That is, each number has a winning percentage of 15.30%. However, the most common prize is the refund, which is in which you recover the money invested (20 euros per tenth). This represents approximately 10% of that 15.30%. Afterwards, the most common are the pedreas, hundreds and two last ones, for which you will get 5 euros for every euro spent. The winnings will begin to be interesting from the approximations, which will depend on whether they are the first, second or third prize.
Although the probabilities of success when participating in the Extraordinary Christmas Draw seem very low, they are higher than with other State Lottery and Betting games of chance. To give an example, in Primitiva and Bonoloto, you must choose six numbers from 1 to 49. There are 13,983,816 different combinations, so the probability of getting it right is one in 13,983,816.
Although the jackpot is larger (millions of euros), the success rate is much lower. This means that many Spaniards who do not even consider playing Primitiva and Bonoloto do bet on the Christmas Lottery.
In addition, there is another factor that makes playing the Extraordinary Christmas Raffle already a tradition and that is the emotional component. Beyond the statistics, many share their tenths with friends, family or co-workers, promoting unity and collective enthusiasm on special dates. It is something that they always emphasize in Lottery advertisements and that seems to have a lot of weight for many Spaniards.
