Catalan seaside town claims lottery prize

7 January 2005

BARCELONA-A small town on the outskirts of Barcelona claimed the winning ticket in the ‘El Niño’ lottery, winning a prize of EUR 56 million.

Thirty-six residents of Sant Pol de Mar will share in the prize in Spain’s second biggest lottery after their ticket, numbered 56.139, was drawn in the traditional Epiphany draw.

The winners included the mayor and a number of workers in a well-known restaurant called Sant Pau.

Manel Mombiela, who won EUR 160,000, said he hoped that the winnings would benefit the small coastal village whose major business is tourism.

The second prize-winning ticket, 81.534, was sold in  Cistierna, near Leon in northern Spain. Ticket-holders shared EUR 32m.

Cistierna, a small village of only 600 people, has fallen on hard times in recent years after the closing of a nearby mine.

The ‘El Niño’ (The little one) lottery promises a potential EUR 560 million in prizes.

The state-run agency which operates the draw, which took place on Thursday during the Epiphany holiday, sold 100,000 tickets at EUR 20 a ticket.

There are a total of 38,612 prizes up for grabs in a complicated system of prizes similar to the much larger El Gordo lottery which is traditionally held on 22 December each year.

In the last draw, the “La Bruixa d’Or” lottery shop in Sort, a small town in Catalonia, in north-east Spain, won for the second time.

[Copyright EFE with Expatica]

Subject: Spanish news