"El Gordo," Spain's massively popular Christmas lottery has started showering $2.4 billion across the country and that's why it's called "The Fat One."
Children from a Madrid school on Thursday morning started the much-awaited annual singing of winning numbers as people tuned in across all media to follow the lottery whose top prize per winning ticket is about $420,000, reported The Associated Press.
Other lotteries have larger individual top prizes but the El Gordo which is held each Dec. 22, is ranked as the world's richest for the total prize money on offer.
Standard tickets cost $20 and people traditionally chip in and buy shares in several tickets with friends, family or workmates.
The nationally-televised draw began Thursday morning in Madrid's Teatro Real opera house with children from Madrid's San Ildefonso calling out the prizes.
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