The El Gordo Sing-along

There was a lot of excitement regarding the Euro millions largest ever 86 million pound jackpot last week.  And sure, that’s an impressive lottery, but I don’t think anything can compare to the pomp, ceremony, tradition and downright oddness of Spain’s annual Christmas lottery – El Gordo (The Fat One).

It’s not just that it’s the biggest lottery in the world, hitting 2 billion euro last year, or the oldest (starting in 1812), for me it’s really about the sheer hysteria, complete media saturation, and best of all, the singing results, televised every year on December 22 and considered as much a part of Christmas as presents under the tree.

You read that correctly. Singing results.  School children work in teams of two to sing out the winning number while another sings out its corresponding prize amount. There are a lot of draws in this lottery.  Perhaps hundreds of 1000 euro wins, several fifth, fourth and third prize draws and then the two big first and second prize draws.  That’s a lot of singing.  There’s just the one tune.  Well I guess it’s kind of more like a cantation.  Each year, school children across the country are carefully selected and trained for this very special task, and a day of  high drama and complex number sequences which must fit snugly into a given stanza.*  Read more...