Strapped Spanish Put Hopes in Lottery

LONDON - Spain was gripped by its annual lottery fever on Saturday as millions who were battered by another year of economic gloom looked forward to a share of a $3.3 billion Christmas payout.

One-in-nine Spaniards were estimated to have bought tickets for what has become the world's richest lottery since it was established in 1812. And one-in-five of those were expecting some kind of cash prize in a state-run draw designed to spread the wealth.

The biggest single winner, however, will be the government, which will pocket "1 billion ($1.3 billion) in ticket sales for the national treasury. “The Christmas Lottery is a lucrative business for some, but especially for the state,” according to the daily Vanguardia.

The state aims to cash in even more next year by en ding the tax-free status of lottery winnings and slapping a 20-percent levy on most prizes.

The center-right government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy can use every spare euro it can get its hands on right now.

Marta Fernández Currás, his deputy budget minister, acknowledged this week that the country would struggle to meet its 2012 deficit target. A deepening recession has undercut the impact of an austerity regime involving billions of euros in budget cuts.

Parliament on Thursday adopted a budget for 2013 that will include further savings worth more than $50 million.

Demonstrators took to the streets of Madrid to protest what they branded “a budget of hunger and misery.”

Although the Rajoy government assured Parliament there is light at the end of the fiscal tunnel in 2013, the Oxfam charity predicted the cuts could drive four-in-ten Spaniards into poverty over the next decade.

That was temporarily forgotten on Saturday as crowds gathered from dawn at Madrid's Theater Royal to see the lottery draw.

“There's no way the Christmas lottery would have missed the regular December 22 date, whether the world ended or not,” said the 20minutos news Website in its minute-by-minute, blow-by-blow update from the three-and-a-half-hour draw.

Recession or not, Spaniards managed to rustle up average stakes of up to "101.54 per inhabitant - in the case of the region of Castille and Leon. At the other end of the scale, in the evidently more prudent Balearic Islands, the average stake was "39.79.

The top prize - El Gordo (the Fat One) - was drawn early and divided among lucky patrons across Spain, according to the organizers. The lucky ticket, by the way - 76.058.

IHT Quick Read: Dec. 22

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