Spain Village Lottery Win: $950M Shared Between All Inhabitants But One
A Spanish shop sold all winning lottery tickets for a Christmas draw, leading to a massive payout of $950 million for an entire village, except for one unlucky man.
Granen, the village in the Los Mongeros area of the Huesca province, celebrated with dance, song and sprayed bottles of champagne after winning the "El Gordo" jackpot in a Christmas drawing. The winnings totaled over 700 million euros in the biggest jackpot ever for the "El Gordo" lottery.
The winning tickets all had the number 58268 and were worth $524,000 (400,000 euros) each, according to a BBC report. All 1,800 winning tickets were sold in the Granen village, which has a population of 2,100.
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Pilar Azagra, owner of shop that sold the tickets, told Spanish TV that the news was brilliant.
"I haven't had time to react, the number came out and then people started flocking to the shop," Azagra said.
She added that many people in her family had also bought tickets. Many people in Granen bought the tickets in groups of families, friends and co-workers. However, one man missed out on the winnings as he failed to join other villagers when they collected money for the super-draw, according to Mid-Day.com.
Costis Mitsotakis, a Greek national, will still see some of the winnings though. One of his neighbors who won the jackpot agreed to use their winnings to buy land, which Mitsotakis was trying to sell.
Village mayor, Carlos Samperiz Enquita, said that there was a lot of emotion and happiness in Granen, according to The Mirror.
"Granen is a party today. There is a lot of emotion and a lot of happiness," Enquita said. "Everyone here knows somebody who has won. Unfortunately I haven't won as I never play the lottery."
Granen has seen hard times in the past year, due to an economic crisis in Spain. Many companies were forced to close down and residents had to look elsewhere to find work.
A pair of housewives in the village said that the reward is a blessing after a very bad year.
"This is the reward for a very bad year, full of sacrifices and hard effort," said Susana Perez, who runs an insurance agency with her husband. "We worked like mules."
