The excitement is palpable as the countdown continues to 22 December, when the draw takes place of the Spanish Christmas Lottery: the biggest lottery in the world.
If you were in Spain right now, you would probably be joining millions of Spaniards at lottery booths beneath twinkling Christmas lights to place your bet on ‘El Gordo’ (the big one).
It is said that more than 90% of the Spanish population embrace the opportunity to play and hopefully win what is considered ‘the Christmas gift of a lifetime’.
Here in South Africa you can now share in that excitement using Lottoland South Africa to place a fixed odds bet on the outcome of the Spanish Christmas Lottery draw, which has a total prize pool of R43.8 billion.
The Spanish Christmas Lottery works more like a raffle than a lottery. There are no lottery balls, instead, there are two huge drums that contain all the purchased tickets – just like a raffle. The drawing of the winning numbers is a major highlight of the Spanish festive season, with family and friends coming together across the country to watch it all unfold ‘live’ on TV.
Surprisingly, the draw is made by children who are students at the San Ildefonso Elementary School in Madrid. The school used to be an orphanage and legend has it that the orphans used to walk through the streets of the city singing Christmas carols. The city and lottery officials decided to trust the innocent orphans and give them the important task of drawing the winning numbers. The tradition stuck and continues even today.
During the telecast the children reach into two large vessels onstage and pull out one small wooden ball at a time from each: one with the ticket number, and one with the prize money to be associated with that number. As they pick the numbers and prizes, they sing them out loud. Players win a prize if the numbers on their ticket match those on a ticket drawn from the drum.
More than 1800 numbers are drawn, and every bet placed stands a chance to win a prize between €200 and €4 million. The main prize is known as ‘El Gordo’ (the big one), but players also have an amazing 1-in-7 chance of winning a lower tier prize money. The total prize pool is broken down into prize ‘tiers’, each with a varying number of prizes on offer: for example, there is only one El Gordo first prize drawn, but the sixth tier, known as La Pedrea, has 1794 prizes of €1000!
To place a fixed odds bet on Lottoland you get to choose a five-digit number between 00000 and 99999 and if your number is drawn, your bet will win the same prize money as if you had purchased a ticket for the official draw in Spain. If you choose a ‘full’ bet, you will receive the full payout for that prize tier, but if you have less to spend and only want to buy a 1/100th fraction of a bet for R80, you will still receive a percentage of the prize money equivalent to your fraction bet. The odds of winning the top prize of €4,000,000 (ZAR equivalent) are 1 in 100 000, which is far better than on any other multimillion Euro lottery event.
The draw is less than month away! Place your bet now on lottoland.co.za
This is how it works:
- Fixed odds betting is when you place a bet on lottoland.co.za on the outcome of the numbers that you think will be drawn in a specific local or international draw.
- You can therefore indirectly take part in any of these ‘big win’ international draws, without even being in that country.
- Lottoland does not sell physical tickets - everything is done online.
- If you guess correctly, Lottoland will match the main prizes and pay the same amount to you as the official winning lottery draw pay out.
- Lottoland payouts are guaranteed as the company is registered and regulated by the Western Cape Gambling and Racing Board.
- Winnings are converted into SA Rand and paid out into your nominated bank account in South Africa.
How to bet on Lottoland South Africa:
- Visit lottoland.co.za
- Click on the Register button
- Register with / Email / Name / SA ID Number / Mobile / Address
- Click on the Create New Account button
- Once you have successfully registered, choose a product to bet on
- Select your chosen numbers
- You will see next to the green button your stake value
- Click Submit
- If you have a promo code for a product enter this in the Enter discount or Promo box
- Click on confirm and proceed
- Choose your method of payment
- There are 6 options to pay for your bet: Visa / Master Card / Snap Scan / Zapper / 1Voucher / SID EFT
- Note that Capitec Cards does not support betting sites so if you are a Capitec Card Holder you can use SID EFT or alternatively Snap Scan / Zapper / Direct Deposit.
- You can also do a direct deposit, but this will take 24 hours to reflect in our account and will thus only show in your Lottoland account 24 hours after you made the direct deposit.
- How do I claim my winnings? When logged in click on My Account and then on Payout. Click on Add account details ZA
- Your funds will then be transferred into your account. (Usually within 24 – 72 hours)