El Gordo 2009, Spain

My one and only "winning" ticket

When I was in Valencia, I saw a long queue at the lottery shop near the hotel. The gambler Chinese in me could not resist checking it out and I discovered that almost everyone was queuing up to buy the year's largest lottery known as El Gordo (The Fat One). The draw was on December 22nd and each ticket cost a hefty 20 euros. And most of the people were buying them by the 5 and 6es.

The total payout was more than 3 billion euros, but what I liked about it was that it was meant to have quite a number of winners so the top prize was finally like 400 000 euros each for a number of people. That made it an event to be looked forward to by many people and even the poor could have a shot at it and hope to win. Heard that the per capita spending on El Gordo last year was about 80 euros (or 4 tickets).

Hub hates it when I gamble and he knows that most Chinese people do. Where was it that I heard this bit about vices in Singapore : the Chinese gamble, the Indians drink and the Malays drug themselves...?

But I am not a desperate gambler like some people I know. I gamble because I want to try my luck occasionally. And I understand perfectly that if you have luck, just one ticket will do. Like that one Singapore Club raffle ticket I had that won me the ticket on Singapore Airlines several years ago in Paris. In any case, 20 euros would have bought me 10 tries at the Euromillion, so I do not risk buying more than one ticket.

My ticket won 120 euros. And I wouldn't be going anywhere in Spain in the next 3 months. So I won't be collecting my win - but it's still nice to know that I've won something. I've not won anything for a number of years now.