The Marquis hit upon the idea of the lottery, known as Lotería por Números, as a way of swelling Carlos's state coffers without imposing a new tax. His was not an original idea by any means. King Francis I of France had attempted to organise one in the sixteenth century. It was a flop because it cost too much to play, but Francis was only trying to follow a means of raising revenue that was by then common in parts of what was to become Italy and the Low Countries. In England, there was a lottery during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, and a state lottery was to later run from the end of the seventeenth century until 1826. Following its demise, it was to be 168 years before Noel presented its revival.
The Marquis's lottery was incredibly complicated, so much so that I don't intend to try and explain how it operated. It was also inefficient. It was supposed to raise revenue but its risk factor for the treasury of the Hacienda was high. In 1811, therefore, another lottery was introduced by the parliament that was then based in Cadiz. It was a lottery of tickets, much like today, which was altogether simpler to comprehend and an altogether better deal for the Hacienda, for whom the risks disappeared as prizes would be based on a percentage of takings. With the first lottery it was in effect the player who determined the size of the reward and not the state.
There are two reasons offered as to why this second lottery came along. One was that it was simply an improvement on the first, the other was that it was to help fund the war against the French. There was probably an element of both reasons, but whatever they were, this new lottery became known as the Lotería Moderna, while the original one was dubbed the Primitiva, which carried on until 1862 before being scrapped. It wasn't revived until 1985. The Moderna, easier to understand and more efficient, became the Lotería Nacional, the National Lottery of Spain. The title "national" became truly established after the death of the mad absolutist monarch Ferdinand VII in 1833 and it has been played ever since, even during the Civil War when the Republicans and the Nationalists each had their own version.
A year after the Moderna started, the lottery of 18 December 1812 was the first special lottery for Christmas. It wasn't to be until 1892 that it in fact became known as the Sorteo de Navidad and, contrary to what might be thought, it was never officially named and still isn't named El Gordo. All lotteries have their "gordo", the big one as in the first prize, but quite when El Gordo passed into common and popular usage to describe the Christmas lottery is a good question. There doesn't seem to be any answer.
And there is another misconception about the Christmas lottery. The pupils of the San Ildefenso school in Madrid who are selected to do the singing (in the loosest sense of the word) did not originally become involved with the lottery at Christmas. Indeed, it wasn't what is now the National Lottery which saw the school become involved; it was the original lottery, the Primitiva. For the lottery of 9 March 1771, a seven-year-old boy called Diego López performed the ritual drawing of numbers so perfectly that the relationship with the school was established and has remained in place ever since. There was a further consideration for creating this relationship. Back then, the children were orphans and, as such, it was thought they would be less susceptible to cheats, though quite what the logic was in making this assumption isn't entirely clear.
Each year, certain numbers for the Christmas lottery attract particular interest. This year, so it is said, the date of the death of the Duchess of Alba has been particularly popular. In the recent past, there has been similar interest in the birth date of Leonor, the first daughter of now King Felipe and Queen Letizia, and the date when Fernando Alonso secured the Formula One championship.
If you fail to turn up trumps with El Gordo, there isn't long to wait for another big draw and so another potential "gordo". The Lotería de El Niño takes place on 6 January. Its history is very much shorter than the Christmas lottery, it having been drawn for the first time in 1941 and not actually given its name (after the "niño" Jesus and the adoration by the Kings) until 1966. If you get lucky with that lottery or indeed any, there is always a very much recent innovation to take into account. Tax. Spain is unusual (but by no means unique) in taxing lottery winnings. But might this tax, only introduced by the current, austerity-inspired government, be scrapped? A little vote winner just prior to the next election? Maybe.
Photo: Christmas lottery ticket from 1812.
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