Why the first Christmas prize is called "El Gordo" (The Fat One)
The first lottery draw in Spain was held on 10 December 1763 during the reign of Carlos III at Esquilache Marquis’ request, with the aim to fundraise more money for the State coffers without imposing/creating a new tax. This was the first draw of the Primitiva Lottery, called the “Lottery by Numbers” back then.
The “Lottery by Numbers” was not very successful and was reformed several times to give it a more beneficial aspect and increase the percentage of the prizes, something that made it less profitable for the Government. As we will mention further down, the Primitiva Lottery draw started to lose popularity quite quickly after the launch of the National Lottery in 1812, eventually stopping altogether from 1862 until 1985.
The “Lucky Dwarf” or the “Lottery Freak”
Coming back to the “Lottery by Numbers”, in order to promote this draw, a new mascot was used as a character that was born even before the very own lottery and that was used in many cards and books of those times, a character that was known as the “Lucky Dwarf” or the “Lottery Freak”. It was a chubby, short character whose body was made up of numbered lottery balls.
Almost half a century after the launch of the “Lottery by Numbers”, between 1808 and 1814 and within the context of the Napoleonic wars, the Spanish Independence War between Spain and France kicked off due to the Peninsula invasion by the French Empire and Napoleón Bonaparte’s intention to place his brother José Bonaparte in the Spanish throne after the abdications of Bayona. Spain, Portugal and the United Kingdom formed an alliance against France in a devastating conflict that led to approximately 1,000,000 deaths and generated huge military expenditures. In order to deal with these huge expenditures, and at the worst moment of the war against the Gauls, the Spanish Government created another lottery draw in 1811 encouraged by the Minister Ciriaco González Carvajal, called “Modern Lottery”, and with the aim to “increase the revenue of the public funds without affecting the taxpayers”. Thus, the first draw was held in Cádiz on 4 March 1812 through tickets with printed numbers, and on 18 December of that same year the first Christmas draw took place. The first “Gordo de Navidad” (Christmas “Gordo”) in history, consisting of a prize of 8,000 "pesos fuertes" (powerful pesos), was won by a lucky Spanish ordinary fellow who had only spent 40 "reales" on number 03604.
After the first draw of the “Modern Lottery” with printed numbers, the “Lottery by Numbers” changed its name to the “Primitiva Lottery” and both draws co-existed for 50 years. The “Modern Lottery” started to attract a lot of followers very quickly, to the point that between 1815 and 1817 the “Modern Lottery” had already doubled the Esquilache Marquis’ earnings with the Primitiva Lottery, and in the following two years the amount grew exponentially, to the extent that in 1862 the Primitiva Lottery was wiped out, and it did not come back until 1985. On the other hand, the Christmas draw of the “Modern Lottery” turned permanently into the main, most resounding draw and in the tradition that we all currently know, and which name was changed to “Christmas Draw” in 1892.
In the middle of this whole story, the drawing of this new character has been going around the country all these years and has become extremely popular through a tale to encourage playing the lottery: “This Lucky Dwarf, full of happiness and money, overjoyed because of his fortune, will show you the way if you study him carefully.” The dwarf´s mission was to convince people to buy lottery tickets and try their luck in the draw, and all of this through rhymes. The drawn character was so successful that even a new weekly gazette called “The Dwarf” was created in 1851, which was presented as a “hot, teasing and argumentative newspaper” and that was advertised as the cheapest newspaper in Spain. The gazette became one of the long-lived publications of the bullfighting press, as it lasted until the year 1912.
The Lucky Dwarf became The Fat One
As years went by, people called the “dwarf” different names, but due to his chubby appearance, the most successful nickname among the Spaniards was “El Gordo” (“The Fat One”), and this name was finally also applied to the draw itself. Francisco José Gómez Fernández, author of “Breve historia de la Navidad” (“Christmas Short Story”) declares that “there is no doubt that this character gave the name “Gordo de la Lotería” to its first prize.”
From the first Gordo in history until today, there have been other 209 winning “Gordo de Navidad” lottery numbers, which has survived all types of political contingencies, economic crises, and even a civil war in which such draw was held twice in 1938 at the two confronted sides.
Another of the most popular curious facts encompassing the Christmas Draw, and to a great extent fed by our dear character, is the costume that many attendants wear to the draw event. A lot of them, during the last few years, managed to become real “memes”. They are mainly older people associated to this type of traditions: we see them dress up as rotated drums, fairies, Popes, Christmas trees, good luck symbols, etc. Nonetheless, there are more and more young people who is joining this trend and decide to go to the draw live event wearing some sort of peculiar, bold costume.
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