Celebration in Malaga's Molinillo neighbourhood, where one of the first prize tickets was sold. SALVADOR SALAS / PEDRO J. QUERO

Small share of the Gordo brings festive joy to winning Christmas lottery ticket holders on Costa del Sol

The famous top prize in Spain’s Christmas lottery scattered millions around the country, and some landed in Malaga, Torremolinos and Villanueva del Trabuco

Antonio M. Romero / Marina Rivas

MALAGA.

Friday, 23 December 2022, 12:07 | Updated 13:10h.

Spain’s famous Christmas lottery shared millions of euros around the country, but not many of them came to the province of Malaga. In fact tickets sold in this area only won some 1.7 million. For the third consecutive year the bulk of the big prize money went elsewhere. Of the 13 big prizes “sung” by children at Madrid’s Teatro Real on Thursday, only a small part of the top prize, the Gordo, had been sold in Malaga, as well as some of the fourth and fifth prizes.

The majority of the winnings came from the Gordo itself, which came out of the famous revolving drums at 11.21am. By then the long Christmas draw was already in its third hour, as children from the San Ildefonso school in Madrid sang the winning numbers that came out of the draw machines and their corresponding prize.

So celebrations in this area have been limited mainly to the four ‘décimo’ tickets of the winning first prize number 05490, that were sold in Malaga province, two in the city, one in Villanueva del Trabuco and another in Torremolinos.

Each of those tickets (sold for 20 euros) is worth 400,000 euros, a tenth of the four million euros allocated to each full ticket. In total 180 series of that number had been on sale around the country, so there are a potential 1,800 tickets now worth 400,000 euros each somewhere in the country. Most of them were sold in Asturias and Galicia in the north of Spain.

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That did not stop the celebrations at the four lottery offices that had sold the winning number on the Costa del Sol. As soon as the T-shirts and “we sold the winning number here” posters had arrived, cameras and glasses came out and the staff celebrations started - even in the absence of the lucky ticket holders.

In Malaga city, one was sold in the Molinillo neighbourhood, and another in the area of La Princesa. The other two ‘décimo’ winning tickets were sold in Villanueva del Trabuco and Torremolinos.

EL Gordo win in Torremolinos

The Torremolinos office, in Playamar, had sold part of the Gordo on three previous occasions, but this was the first time under its new managers, Marta Ramos-Valcarce and Erika Acosta, who took over the lottery office just a couple of months ago. “Beginners’ luck,” laughed the sisters-in-law, Marta from Salamanca, and Erika from Honduras, who have now delivered lottery prize money to one of their customers.

Fifth prizes in Fuengirola

Meanwhile there were celebrations in Fuengirola in the lottery office run by Amelia Ramos, who inherited the business from her mother, who opened the office 77 years ago.

She had sold a full series (ten décimos) of one of the fifth prizes, 38454. “This makes us so happy,” said Amelia, who runs the office with her husband and son.

Back in Torremolinos there were double celebrations at Los Jazmines lottery office run by Elena Porras, which sold part of a fourth and fifth prize. Until Thursday morning she had been at a Malaga hospital looking after her father, the former owner of the lottery office, who had had a stroke.

“The big prize for me is that they’re going to transfer my father to the hospital in Torremolinos,” said Elena, happily.

Adrián Palomo, 41, is the owner of the lottery office in the Molinillo district of Malaga, which also sold part of the Gordo. “For a lottery seller, this is the best thing that could happen,” he told SUR.