The El Niño Lottery is showering Catalonia with enthusiasm: "Hopefully, they will be neighbors from the neighborhood who need it."
The winning number in the Three Kings' Day raffle, which has affected a dozen Catalan municipalities, was 06.703.
The El Niño lottery has showered Catalonia with good fortune this year. The first prize in the Three Kings' Day raffle went to 06703, a number widely distributed throughout Spain and especially in Catalonia, where winning tickets were sold in a dozen municipalities, including Barcelona, Mataró, Sabadell, and Terrassa. The lucky winners will take home €200,000 per ticket.
The second prize went to 45875, which was sold primarily in Madrid, but also at a sales point on Sicília Street in Barcelona. Winners of this second prize will receive €75,000 per ticket. Finally, the third prize went to 32615, which was sold at only two locations: Granada and Burgos. Those who win the third prize will receive €25,000 for each ticket played. In total, this year's lottery draw offered €770 million in prizes, distributed among 36,818 awards.
"We saw on TV that they were only showing three or four towns, and when we found out, we came running because we weren't expecting it," admitted Amadeu Jové, an employee at lottery outlet number 1 in Salou, known as the Doña Pilar outlet, which sold some of the winning tickets for the first prize. Despite their joy, no one came to claim their prize at the shop on Tuesday, and they don't yet know how many tickets they sold. "We know it's a machine-generated ticket; we don't know the exact number because some people buy a single ticket and others buy whole sheets," the employees explained.
They do know how many tickets they sold in Cornellà. Lottery outlet number 6 in this town in the Baix Llobregat region sold only one series – 10 tickets – of the first prize, and all were purchased over the counter. "It's important to have sold it so we can keep working," said the outlet's manager, Alberto Romero, who also noted that this same establishment had already sold the third prize in the 2024 Christmas Lottery and the top prize in 2023. No young winners came to the outlet, just as happened in Rubí. In Rubí, the outlet's management chose not to open, and only curious onlookers approached the premises. "They say it was won here, but it doesn't seem like anyone wants to celebrate," commented a woman walking past the outlet with a Three Kings' Day cake under her arm. In contrast, in Barcelona, a small celebration was organized with neighbors on Sicília Street. At lottery outlet number 160 in Barcelona, five series of the second prize in the Three Kings' Day raffle were sold, totaling almost four million euros. "I hope they're all neighbors in the area who need it," said the owner, Pablo Martín, who was handing out cava to the attendees. Martín explained that this is the first time they've sold a winning ticket during the Christmas lotteries and expressed his hope that it will be "the first of many."
Good luck to Paiporta
Beyond Catalonia, the top prize in the El Niño Lottery has been won in almost every autonomous community in Spain. In fact, Cantabria is the only region that hasn't received a share of this top prize. The winning number 06703 was sold in 146 different lottery outlets, making it one of the most widely distributed El Niño top prizes in history. Among the lucky places is Paiporta, one of the municipalities affected by the DANA storm in the Valencian Community, which sold a winning ticket for the top prize and which, months after the disaster last year, also sold tickets for the third prize in this draw.
Another notable case in this year's draw is Benasque. In this Aragonese municipality, four winning tickets for the top prize were sold, breaking the curse of Huesca, a province where the top prize in the Three Kings' Day lottery had never been won before.
The Catalans have spent 92 million
In this year's El Niño lottery, Catalans spent €92.7 million. This figure represents a 0.69% decrease in spending on the draw compared to last year. However, the average expenditure per capita for this Three Kings' Day lottery was €11.41 per Catalan. By region, Barcelona spent €65.704 million, 0.41% less than last year, and Lleida €9.6 million, with an average expenditure of €20.90 per capita, inflated by sales at the Bruixa d'Or lottery outlet in Sort. Girona residents spent €8.5 million, and Tarragona €8.7 million.
As for the rest of the country, the autonomous community that spent the most money per capita on the raffle was Castile and León with €30.29, followed by Asturias with €30.27. A total of €864.682 million was spent across Spain.
