Major Spanish lottery drawn today

The big winners in this year’s El Gordo lottery in Spain are celebrating in a Madrid suburb today after receiving pay-outs of up to Euro 400,000 from a Euro 2.5 billion-euro mountain of cash divided among thousands of ticket holders.

More than 100 of the top winning tickets were sold in the Madrid suburb, reports the Associated Press news agency, which noted that another 20 went to the southern city of Cadiz, and smaller wins were reported in other cities across the nation.

AP explains that unlike lotteries that offer one large jackpot or just a few big winning tickets, Spain’s Christmas season El Gordo distributes prizes to thousands of people, with other winning tickets paying out tens of thousands.

The high profile draw show went on for four hours and was avidly watched by millions of Spaniards, many of whom are struggling financially due to the European economic recession.

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