The winning ticket of the top prize, numbered 66513 was drawn at 11.57am and then announced in song by students from Madrid’s San Ildefonso school.
66513, el Gordo de la #LoteríaNavidad 2016 https://t.co/9Jq9Hed12I pic.twitter.com/U4QRlIicxX
— Loteria Navidad (@loterianavidad_) December 22, 2016
Each year Spaniards go crazy for the lottery, with some 75 percent of the population participating in a game that gives 1:6 odds of winning something, where those with winning numbers each take a share of the €640 million top prize.
READ MORE: The ultimate guide to Spain's Christmas lottery
But this year, the big prize was a number exclusively sold in the Madrid neighbourhood of Acacias, specifically at a lottery shop located at number 4, Paseo de la Esperanza.
The two schoolgirls who sang out the winning number in a televised event from the Madrid's Teatro Real opera house,were Lorena Stefan y Nicol Valenzuela Vásquez, by strange coincidence the same two girls who sang the winning numbers last year.
Lorena Stefan y Nicol Valenzuela Vásquez with the winning number. Photo: AFP
People usually club together buying a tenth of a ticket – un decimo – each for €20 so that whole groups of friends, family or work colleagues end up with the same number.
Those lucky decimo holders of the winning number will enjoy a win of €400,000.
WATCH: Spanish Christmas lottery ad is a real tear jerker.
Spain's state lottery estimates that in 2016 each Spaniard will have spent, on average, €63.80 on Christmas lottery tickets.
Other lotteries have larger individual top prizes but El Gordo is ranked as the world's richest, handing out a total of €2.31 billion ($2.46 billion) this year in millions of prizes.
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