Popular lotteries in Spain

Lottery in Spain

Man is a gambling creature. And the Spanish man is doubly so. Especially when it comes to the lottery. Who wouldn't want to win big?

The most popular lotteries in Spain

Some time after I moved to Spain, I started to notice crowds of people standing outside the small lottery ticket kiosks with hope in their eyes: what if today is their lucky day? Especially the number of people increases when it comes to Christmas, because the biggest lottery is on 22 December and the winnings can amount to millions of euros! Sounds great, doesn't it?

There are many types of lotteries in Spain, both cheap daily lotteries and annual lotteries with big winnings. Everyone can take part (and there are always a lot of people who do), regardless of whether they have residency or not. Accordingly, if you win, you do not need an official residence permit to claim your prize. So, let's take a look at the most famous and favourite Spanish lottery draws:

ONCE

ONCE is the most widespread daily lottery in the ‘at-home’ format. The Spanish National Organisation for the Blind (ONCE) is the Spanish name of this social organisation, which created the game in 1938 with the original idea of providing leisure activities for people with disabilities. And in 1984 ONCE began to work in the current format, where the profit is aimed at the development of jobs for people with disabilities. Here everything is very simple and inexpensive - a ticket costs 2 euros, daily draws are broadcast on national channels from 22:00-22:30, well, on the official website, too, of course, you can learn about the results.

National Lottery - Lotería Nacional

One of the favourite pastimes of the people of Spain. It is held every Thursday and Saturday, except for special draws, when the Saturday lottery is replaced by a special lottery. There are also extraordinary draws, such as the Christmas National Lottery. This gives you 4 draws that you can participate in: Thursday, Saturday, Special and Extraordinary.

Each ticket is divided into ten parts, and you can buy a whole ticket or any number of parts of this ticket (there are only 10 of them). The cost of one tenth part: on Thursdays - 3 euros, on Saturdays - 6 euros, special lotteries - 12, 15 euros, and extraordinary tickets - 20 euros. But you need to be careful and remember that this cost is only for one tenth part. That is, if you want to buy, for example, a whole ticket for the Thursday raffle, the price will be 30 euros.

There are many ticket points in every city. You can also buy them online on their official website.

National Christmas Lottery - Lotería Nacional de Navidad

This draw is one of the most popular and important lotteries in Spain. It is held every 22nd of December in Madrid, and its broadcast is very much awaited by most of the country's inhabitants, who watch with bated breath every ball that is pulled out.

This Christmas tradition has been around since 1812 and is one of the oldest regular lotteries in the entire world.

The jackpot (el Gordo in Spanish) is 400,000 euros! The next prize is 125,000 euros, followed by a prize of 50,000 euros and so on. But, remember that the ticket is divided into 10 parts, so the winnings will also be divided into the same number of equal shares. In fact, the probability of winning, if not the jackpot, then at least some amount of money is very high, because it is not for nothing that so many Spaniards take part in the Christmas draw!

This lottery is of course great and all, but I personally, as well as many people whose children joined some sports club from the state, had an unpleasant experience - in October the children are given a bunch of lottery tickets, which you have to sell by December and give the profit to them, and if you don't sell - you have to pay the full price. Not a very pleasant experience, let me tell you! In my opinion, such things should be voluntary, not forced!

But we digress, let's move on.

Lottery Primitiva - Lotería La Primitiva

This gambling game is also popular among the inhabitants of Spain. It consists of the following: you need to choose 6 different numbers from 1 to 49, and 1 number from 0 to 9. The cost of one game - 1 euro. If you match all 7 numbers (the probability is extremely small, but still), you can win 1.000.000 €! However, there are many other wins, with a smaller amount, but with a higher probability. The draw takes place on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays at 21:40. To bet in the game, you can visit any of the lottery outlets or play online on the official website. You can find out about the results in the same way.

El Gordo de la Primitiva Lottery - El Gordo de la Primitiva

A variation of the Primitive lottery draw that gives out jackpots on Sundays. In order to play, you must select 5 numbers from 1 to 54 in six blocks and another 5 numbers from 0 to 9. The cost per bet is €9.

Euromillones

This is an international lottery in which nine countries participate: Spain, Portugal, France, UK, Ireland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Austria and Switzerland. The lottery is drawn in Paris on Tuesdays and Fridays. It is another gambling game, the essence of which is very similar to Primitiva: here you also need to guess 7 numbers. Only in Euromillion for each bet you need to choose 5 different numbers from 1 to 50, and 2 stars from 1 to 12. You can choose them yourself, or the system can automatically randomise them for you. The cost of one bet is €2.5.

BonoLoto

Another very popular lottery that gambling Spaniards love is the bonoloto. The draw takes place daily, from Monday to Sunday. In order to play one bet, you simply have to guess 6 different numbers from 1 to 49. The cost of one bet is 0.5 euros, minimum bets must be 2 and maximum bets must be 8. Thus, to play bonoloto, you need to pay a minimum of 1 euro. The chances of winning will be much better if you make 8 bets - then the fee for these 8 bets will be 4 euros.