If there’s one Spanish tradition that gets absolutely everyone talking in December, it’s the Spanish Christmas Lottery, Lotería de Navidad, better known as El Gordo. It’s less about becoming a millionaire overnight and more about the whole country sharing a massive pot of prize money.
- Key dates and schedule for the Spanish Christmas Lottery
- How the Spanish Christmas Lottery works
- Spanish Christmas Lottery tickets
- How to play the Spanish Christmas Lottery
- Where to buy Spanish Christmas Lottery tickets in Spain
- Spanish Christmas Lottery 2025 prize breakdown and El Gordo jackpot
- The lottery ritual and other festive traditions
Key dates and schedule for the Spanish Christmas Lottery
The Spanish Christmas Lottery always lands just before Christmas and sets the tone for the festive season. In 2025, the main El Gordo draw is expected, as usual, on 22nd December, with the balls starting to roll in the morning. The draw is held in Madrid and is usually broadcast live on Spanish TV, radio and online.
How the Spanish Christmas Lottery works
At its core, the Spanish Christmas Lottery is a special once‑a‑year national lottery draw with one of the world’s biggest total prize pools. It is known as El Gordo, “the fat one”, because the first prize amount per full ticket is famously chunky, even if the money is spread across lots of winners.
Each number exists in multiple series, which means lots of people around Spain can hold the same number and win the same prize in different places. That’s why you often see news reports of an entire village or neighbourhood celebrating El Gordo together.
Spanish Christmas Lottery tickets
One of the slightly confusing bits, especially if you’re used to simple scratchcards, is the way tickets are divided. A full Spanish Christmas Lottery ticket is split into ten smaller parts called décimos, and almost everyone buys just a décimo rather than the whole thing. The official price per décimo is €20, which means a full number costs €200. So if a full ticket wins €4 million for El Gordo, each décimo of that number wins €400,000.
Tickets for the Christmas Lottery usually go on sale months in advance, often in early summer, and popular numbers can sell out quickly. The sales period typically runs right up until the evening before the draw, though individual shops may run out of stock earlier.
How to play the Spanish Christmas Lottery
Each lottery ticket has a five‑digit number, and that number, plus its series, is what you’re buying a share of. You don’t pick numbers like in the UK National Lottery. Instead, you choose which printed numbers to buy, or let a retailer or website allocate you one.
Because there are so many prize tiers and smaller payouts, your chance of winning something is much higher than with many weekly lotteries, even though the first prize odds are still very long. However, be aware that the tax on lottery winnings can be substantial, so you're not likely to pocket all the cash you win.
Where to buy Spanish Christmas Lottery tickets in Spain
If you’re physically in Spain any time between late summer and December, you’ll see that lottery shops have queues snaking out of the door. Tickets are sold at official lottery kiosks and administraciones de lotería, as well as at some tobacconists and other licensed outlets. You can usually recognise them by the official logo of Loterías y Apuestas del Estado in the window and by the printed receipts they issue.
You can also buy tickets online, on the official Loterías y Apuestas del Estado website. You can find them on international online lottery platforms, too, but make sure the website is official and safe.
Spanish Christmas Lottery 2025 prize breakdown and El Gordo jackpot
The Christmas Lottery’s Extraordinary Draw will distribute a total of €2.772 billion in prizes, around €70 million more than last year, so there’s an enormous amount of money being shared out across Spain.
For 2025, the first prize, the Gordo of Christmas, pays €4 million per series, the second prize €1,250,000 per series, and the third €500,000 per series. There are also two fourth prizes of €200,000 per series and eight fifth prizes of €60,000 per series. On top of that, you still have the pedrea (a long string of smaller payouts) and refunds, where you simply get your ticket price back.
The lottery ritual and other festive traditions
The Spanish Christmas Lottery isn’t just a draw, it’s a full‑on seasonal ritual that marks the unofficial start of the holidays. You'll see queues curling around famous lottery shops, friends clubbing together for shared décimos and bars handing out cava and snacks on 22nd December when a local number hits. Long before the balls start rolling, people plan how they’ll split any winnings, then roll any smaller prizes into the Lotería del Niño draw in January for a second shot at festive luck.
The lottery slots in alongside other deeply rooted festive customs in Spain. These include seafood on Christmas Eve with the family, grape munching on NYE, and the colourful parades and presents of Three Kings’ Day.
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