It is awaited with all the excitement and ritual proper to the season. Spain's Christmas lottery is worth a record ¬1.75 billion (US$2.14 billion) to the winners this year, including ¬380 million (US$465 million) for "El Gordo" ("The Fat One").
The 2003 tickets, illustrated with a sentimental Nativity scene painted by Spaniard Pedro Berruguete (1445-1503), were put on sale as far back as July.
Ever since, hairdressers' windows, cafe counters and fast-food fronts have been plastered with millions of leaflets proclaiming "Christmas lottery here".
Shop-keepers, sports clubs and groups of all kinds have bought up entire sheaves either to offer or to resell to their most faithful clients.
Fighting off the cold
More picturesque than the state lottery offices are the clusters of venerable lottery-vendors dotted along Spain's major thoroughfares, who to fight off the current wave of cold shout to passers-by that El Gordo will fall right into their blanket-clad laps.
Superstitious buyers can go for a lucky number. Two years ago, one of the hot favorites was number 11901 in reference to the 9/11 attacks in the United States, but the ticket failed to bring in a cent.
Where the superstitious are putting their money
This year's top of the stakes was 22504, the date set for the wedding of the heir to the throne, Prince Felipe de Bourbon, to his fiancée, former television journalist Letizia Ortiz Rocasolano. The lottery office in the south-east city of Valencia that had the series, sold out within a week of the official announcement of the royal tying-of-the-knot.
But those nostalgic for the old dictatorship days under General Francisco Franco need seek no further than the far-right Fuerza Nueva, which has bought the 1439 and 18736 series, the dates marking the end and beginning of what they call the "Crusade" (the civil war that ran from 18/7/1936 to 1/04/1939).
Even the Civil War failed to disrupt the Christmas lottery, which in 1938 when the country was divided was held twice rather than once, once in the Republican zone, the other in the sector under the control of Franco.
A little help from the internet
With the help of the internet, which has circulated the message that "no other lottery in the world distributes quite as much money", the success of the "Spanish El Gordo" has spilled well beyond the country's borders.
One of the Web sites said to be lucky, El Gordo Online (http://www.betslips.com), is nearing their cutoff for ticket sales, midnight on December 18.
"Players who want to play in the Christmas El Gordo need to do so right now," says Charles Babson, spokesperson for El Gordo Online. "El Gordo starts with a big ticket inventory, but once they're sold out, that's it. It's not like a lotto game that can sell an infinite number of tickets, there is a fixed amount."
Babson says El Gordo Online has customers from practically every country in the world. "El Gordo has universal appeal the world over. It is the world's largest payout, and it has terrific odds of winning a prize."
Three-hour ceremony
The draw on December 22 is an old-fashioned ceremony, and is followed live on radio and on television by millions of Spaniards. During three hours, and for the 185th consecutive year, children from Madrid's San Ildefonso orphanage, got up in their best Sunday clothes, monotonously chant the numbers of the winning tickets.
The big winner like every other year will be the Spanish Treasury, which pockets 25 percent of the sales and hopes to see a two to three percent increase in 2003 on the ¬2.086 billion (US$2.554 billion) in sales the preceding year.
However, El Gordo still returns a whopping 70% of its revenue back to the players in the form of prizes. By comparison, most United States lotteries return between 40% and 50% to their players.
According to the Consumers' Federation, each Spaniard this year will spend ¬120 (US$147) on the Christmas lottery.
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