Playing the lottery in Spain, no doubt!

The biggest lottery is “El Gordo” (the fat one) and one is able to win between 4 and 5 million euros, which is a lot of money, especially during the crisis in Spain. “El Gordo” is always drawn on TV by little children singing during 4 of 5 hours, on the 22nd of December. The probability to pick up a price before Christmas-eve is around 15%. That is why, most people hope to win at least a part of the price. Since a whole lottery ticket can be expensive, people group together to buy it or they buy a tenth (décimo) only.

The little kiosks on the streets of Seville are doing great business in the days before Christmas. There are long queues in the street and sometimes you have to wait for two hours to obtain your favourite 5 digits ticket. If bike-touring through the city, pay special attention to the famous little lottery stand at “Calle Constitucion 10”, near to the cathedral. This kiosk is called “El gato negro”, the black cat (of course with administration number 13, what else?).

This family business exists since 1933 and the owner gave the name to this kiosk, when a black cat crossed the street while he was heading to his shop. Although its name expresses a lot of misfortune, the opposite is happening with “El gato negro”. In the 80’s, big prices fell 4 (!) times on the numbers of the black cat, which made whole neighbourhoods rich in the city. Of course, many people would like to repeat these days and that is why after buying their ticket, they fold it and ask the 2 cats made of ceramics on the wall for good fortune… so queue up this time.. before you can even wink the tickets may be sold out and a black cat stays an ordinary black cat..