El Gordo vs. UK Lottery - The Many Differences

The purpose of this piece is to point out some of the major differences between popular traditional lottery games and the world renowned Spanish lottery, El Gordo.

In a standard lottery game a player is usually required to select a series of numbers from a specific number range as well as an additional bonus number. For example, in the UK lottery a player must choose 6 main numbers from 1-49 inclusive and then a further bonus number from the same range. To win the jackpot, a player has to match all of their six main chosen numbers with those numbers drawn. If no player manages to match all the drawn numbers in a given week, the top prize is rolled over to the next week growing in size as it does so.

The December El Gordo lottery draw is vastly different in this area; only so many tickets are printed for this draw and due to this, winners are guaranteed in every draw.

The price you have to pay for an entire El Gordo ticket (Billete) is also very different from purchasing a ticket in a normal lottery game, like the UK National lottery. Purchasing a ticket for one UK lottery draw costs a UK resident only 1 pound. El Gordo lotto tickets will, on the other hand, cost you 200 Euros each. Due to the considerable price tag of partaking in this lottery game, whole tickets are divided into ten parts (Decimos) costing a more reasonable 20 Euros. It is therefore fairly common for groups of friends or family members to divide the cost of an entire El Gordo ticket in order to make the game a more feasible proposition.

In the UK National lotto a very small percentage of people ever win substantial quantities of cash, with the majority left disappointed on a weekly basis. The El Gordo on the other hand gives that winning sensation to a much larger percentage of individuals. In the 2006 El Gordo lottery draw, 3 million Euros were paid out to each of the 180 winning billetes. In the El Gordo draw of 2005, the winning number was sold in the town of Vic in Catalonia (population 37,825), whose inhabitants collected approximately 500 million Euros.

The Elgordo also offers up considerably better chances of picking up a cash win compared to that of the UK National lottery; with the El Gordo lottery you have a very good 1 in 6 chance of securing a cash win compared to 1 in 52 when playing the UK National lotto.

When playing lotteries like the UK lotto, new lotto tickets are made available each time a pound is spent which means that tickets never run out for any of the weekly draws. The El Gordo is completely different because only a certain amount of tickets are ever printed and once they are all sold no more will become available.

The El Gordo lotto not only generates massive joy in its native Spain but now all over the world due to the ever increasing number of web-based lottery ticket sales agents. It is therefore very important that you pick up your desired amount of lotto tickets as soon as they hit the market, to avoid missing out.