Champagne corks popped all over the Catalan town of Vic on Thursday after the world’s biggest lottery draw paid out â,¬510-million (R3,8-billion) to its inhabitants.
The annual lottery known as El Gordo (the Fat One) had a record payout of â,¬2-billion (R15-billion) after 80% of Spaniards bought tickets in a bid to boost their fortunes before Christmas.
The deluge of money is expected to transform Vic, a Catalan hill town of 36 000 people 96km inland from Barcelona. With â,¬510-million in winnings being showered on it, the average resident was â,¬14 170 (about R107 400) better off on Thursday afternoon than he or she had been in the morning.
Carme Criviller, a restaurant owner who pocketed â,¬1,2-million, said the whole town was celebrating.
”A group of 40 people were coming today for lunch. I don’t know what we are going to do because everything is out of control,” she said. Police had to close roads in the town, as people flooded into the centre to join the celebrations.
The El Gordo payout system is complex, but it spreads its wealth widely. Each of the 85 000 Gordo lottery numbers is divided into small parts, meaning that the payout on the winning number is usually shared among several thousand people.
With all the tickets bearing Thursday’s winning number of 20 085 being sold by one lottery office in Vic, the town was preparing for sudden riches. For each euro spent on the winning number, people were due to get €15 000 back.
Hundreds of people in Vic reportedly bought â,¬20 shares in the number, meaning a sudden leap in the proportion of townsfolk with â,¬300 000 in the bank.
El Gordo has, in the past, transformed the towns or villages. Vic can now be expected to see more luxury cars and a surge in house prices.
Local bank managers were among those clustered outside the lottery office that sold the winning number as they offered people special rates for depositing the money in accounts at their branches.
Lottery officials have warned winners of the tax-exempt El Gordo payouts against accepting cash for their tickets from people wanting to money-launder. Winners are often offered more cash for their ticket than the prize money they are due by people wanting to launder money.
”If they do that, they will be liable to pay tax on the money they receive,” said one official.
El Gordo is the world’s richest lottery, although other draws have bigger individual top prizes. Spaniards spend an average â,¬70 a head on El Gordo numbers.
Continuing a 200-year-old tradition, schoolchildren at a former school sang out the five-digit lottery numbers and corresponding prizes in a live broadcast from virtually every Spanish TV channel on Thursday.
The biggest lottery winner each year is the Spanish state. This year it is expected to add â,¬690-million from El Gordo into funds earmarked for public spending. — Guardian Unlimited Â