Why have tickets for Spain's bumper Christmas lottery gone on sale in midst of peak summer holiday season?

With more than five months still to go until Spain's traditional bumper Christmas lottery draw on 22 December, tickets can now be purchased for this eagerly awaited date. The administrations have already received the tickets and put them on sale in order to take advantage of the demand expected during the summer holidays. Sources consulted at the government's state lottery agency explained that work on this year's draw began on 23 December last year and that they received the physical tickets on 1 July, although the electronic ones will officially be put on sale on Monday 8 July.

At the moment, the administrations are busy with tasks such as stamping the Christmas tickets, setting aside the tickets reserved for their subscribers, preparing those that each year go to organisations of various kinds (companies, brotherhoods, associations...) and the sale that they make through their websites, according to the sources.

"We have had the lottery tickets available on the counters since Monday. People have been asking us about the lottery for the 22 December draw almost since last Christmas, and especially since Easter, so from the moment we received them, we put them on sale," explained Agustín Giménez, husband of Patricia Carrillo, the manager of the lottery kiosk 'La Tribuna', located in Calle Cisneros Street, 9, in Malaga city.

The points of sale will display the signs 'Ya hay lotería de Navidad' (we now have Christmas lottery tickets). "There have already been customers who have collected their tickets," says Giménez, who pointed out that in tourist provinces such as Malaga there are several times when there is a "boost" in the sale of these tickets: summer, holiday weekends and when the date of the draw is approaching.

The price of the tickets remains at 20 euros, and this year, 193 series of each number have been issued, which means eight series more than in the 2023 draw when there were 185, according to the data provided by the state lottery agency.