MADRID, Dec. 22 (UPI) — The winning numbers in the world’s biggest lottery were named Tuesday in what has become a yearly tradition in Spain around the holidays.
The winning numbers for the country’s “el Gordo” jackpot — worth $2.4 billion this year — were revealed, followed by a contingent of winners stepping forward to claim their prize.
As part of the tradition, school children announced the winning numbers on television: 79140.
The first prize went to winning ticket holders in the town of Roquetas del Mar, who will now collect a little more than $700 million, news reports said.
“We will pay lots of our debt and buy a car and invest so that my son can complete his dream: be a bullfighter,” one second prize winner, Francisco Carrillo, who has six children and is unemployed, told El Pais.
There are typically numerous winners on a wide range of jackpot levels. The odds of winning the mega lottery, which began in 1892, are quite long.
“Your odds of being an El Gordo winner are about 1 in 100,000 per ticket,” one lottery website states, noting that between 80 and 98 percent of Spanish citizens play the lottery in some fashion.
The winning numbers for a smaller Spanish lottery, called “el Nino,” will be announced Jan. 6.
