El Gordo now available - Drawing Dec. 22

Every year I used to link to a good service for El Gordo tickets.  Unfortunately that service stopped doing business years ago.

I am happy to report that I am now able to again link to an excellent source for El Gordo tickets.

Here it is

This company has one of the best systems for buying El Gordo that I have seen or used.  You get to choose your ticket numbers right up front, and you actually see the scanned image of the real ticket that you're buying, before you make the purchase.  It's really fantastic.

For those who don't know how El Gordo works, here's a primer:

• El Gordo is basically a huge raffle.  However, unlike typical US raffles in which there is only one of each number available, El Gordo publishes "series" of raffle numbers.  So if you have the number 123456, there are probably a dozen (or more) other people who have that same number.
• But that's OK (to have the same number as other people), because the prize pool is so huge that you'll still be pretty rich if you win.
• The prize pool this year is €2,520,000,000.  That's right, $2.5 billion Euros.  Or, in US Dollars, that's $3.3 billion.
• El Gordo tickets are pretty expensive.  So they divide tickets into 10 sections called "decimas", and each one is only one-tenth the cost of a full ticket.  Each decima has the same ticket number.  So if you buy one decima (one-tenth of the ticket) and your ticket wins $1 million, then your decima wins $100,000 -- one-tenth of the ticket's prize value.  (On the ticket service site the call the decimas "shares".)
• Of course, you can buy an entire ticket if you like (all 10 decimas/shares), but most people like to buy decimas from different ticket numbers, so they have more chances to win.
• In addition to the main jackpot prize, there are numerous other ways to win a lower-tier prize.  For example, matching the last digit on your ticket to the last digit of the winning number.  I can't remember all the different ways to win, but luckily if you use the lottery service, they will figure out for you if you won or not.  (Of course you can double-check them, but they're very good at what they do.)
• The drawing is on December 22.

Just for the record, I am not related in any way to the service I've linked to above.  I am not an owner, investor, employee, etc.  What you choose to do is your business.  But the company has come a long way, and I am very impressed with them.  In fact, I played Powerball a couple times with them in the record draw last week, just to see how they would do in a massive crunch time like that, and it was a very good experience.  I believe I'll be doing some El Gordo business with them too!

Here's the link again:  Play El Gordo online in the Dec. 22 drawing

I like That they  have   Random  Kids  Pull the  Numbers

             I always wondered  if we could get in on that

¿ΗÜΗ?

Can we bet on the random kids?

There's a Big  Barrel/ Basket/ Tumbler

     And these Little Kids  come up  and reach in and Draw Lottery Balls

                                                I Think....

There are kids who actually sing the winning numbers.  Everyone in the country of Spain watches the live broadcast on TV.  It is the biggest event all year (no kidding).

So that is how it is done!   Always felt sorry for the one person in the town that did not participate.  But it was his choice.

Good luck to anyone who participates.

Thanks Todd, I always wondered if there was a way to get in on that one.

Can we trade in the kids for maybe, Penelope Cruz, Selma Hayek and Kim Kardashian in a bikini?

I would buy that for a dollar (or ten dollars!)

That would get my decima going,

or flowing,

or growing?

EL GORDO!

Andale! Andale! Wepa!

If they can get in on our powerball, then we should be able to get in on their EL GORDO, 

next stop youtube, would like to see if they have some of those recorded drawings.

Am i reading this right.   45.75 = 1 share = 1/10 of a ticket.    Thats a big gamble.

How many times do they pick a new number.

           I logged in and quickly logged out upon seeing that price.

How many times do they pick a new number?  Not sure what you mean.  It's one drawing.  The ticket numbers you see for sales are tickets that the company has already purchased, and have not been bought by someone using their service yet.  You can click the little "shuffle" button below the tickets to see other numbers.

El Gordo is not for the faint of heart (price-wise), but the odds are not too shabby.  The payouts are huge.

Thanks for posting.

I plan to buy a couple of shares.

A bit more info that I have just learned:  because the company has to buy the tickets in advance, tickets will start to get limited the closer to the draw it becomes.  If you're interested in buying different numbers, you might want to check back with them from time to time, because as new tickets are purchased, they are posted in their system.

The cutoff date for all purchases (by customers) is December 21, and they can't buy any more tickets to add to their inventory for threee days before that date.  So, in other words, tickets will start to become scarce starting Dec. 18.

It's also quite a bit of a markup.  According to Wikipedia, one decimo (share) costs 20 euros, which, depending on which currency converter you use, comes out to between $26.15 and $26.20.  So basically The Lotter stands to make quite a profit on this game alone.

I went to Wikipedia because I didn't fully understand the prize structure and I was hoping for a more thorough explanation than the one that was provided.  I'm still a little foggy on the details, but I think I've got the gist of it now.  It looks fairly complicated, at least when compared to American lotteries, but as Todd said, it also appears to be rather lucrative.  I'll consider buying a share, maybe two if I'm feeling ambitious.