Spaniards have been anticipating the arrival of ‘The Fat One’ for weeks; its top prize is 400,000 euros, with the rest paid out in smaller winnings

Players with winning tickets in Spain's huge Christmas lottery draw on Sunday celebrated with sparkling wine, cheers and hugs in a 200-year-old tradition that marks the beginning of the Christmas season.

Spain's world-famous "El Gordo" Christmas lottery distributed a record more than €2.7 billion ($2.8 billion) on Sunday, with the lucky winners holding tickets with the number 72,480 in Logroño in La Rioja in northern Spain.

Spanish broadcaster RTVE showed the typically four-hourlong event from the Teatro Real opera house in Madrid, in the presence of around 400 spectators, it said. Most of the lottery tickets are sold in Spain but an increasing number of foreigners are participating online.

Lottery mania hits Spain in the weeks leading up to the Christmas lottery. Relatives, co-workers, groups of friends and club members frequently buy tickets or fractions of them together, often favouring particular "lucky" vendors or numbers. The most common ticket costs 20 euros, offering up to 400,000 euros in prize money, before taxes.

The most coveted prize, El Gordo, was announced as Number 72408, valued at €400,000 per ticket, had been sold in a lottery shop in Logroño.

SPAIN will be holding its breath this Sunday morning as numbers are drawn for the festive lottery El Gordo(the Fat One). It's the world's second-longest

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