PLAYING the El Gordo can turn out to be a postcode lottery – literally – depending upon how much you believe in fortune and history repeating itself: some locations seem to have all the luck, and others have never seen a win in the 206-year history of the draw.
Since the year 1812 when the first El Gordo Christmas lottery was drawn, Madrid has been the city with the most wins – 80 – whilst Barcelona has scooped up 47, Valencia 21, Sevilla 16, Cádiz 15, Málaga 14, and Alicante, Bilbao, Zaragoza and Murcia, 11, not including this morning's draw.
This might seem obvious, though, given that they appear to be listed in descending order of size, at least for the top four.
But first-prize winning El Gordo tickets do not follow a pattern when it comes to the provinces with the greatest success – a total of 12 of them have had at least five jackpots, and they are neither the largest, the smallest, nor concentrated in a specific area.
Provinces with more than five wins...
Asturias and Cantabria have been home to the winning ticket-holders – or at least, the shops which sold the jackpot décimos – nine times each, whilst the provinces of Granada (Andalucía), Badajoz (Extremadura), and the Balearic Islands have attracted the top prize eight times, not including today's draw.
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