Spain halted by lottery fever

Gregorio Gomez, left, of Cape Verde holds up his winning ticket with an unidentified winner after sharing part of 'El Gordo'

MADRID, Spain -- A lottery jackpot being billed as the biggest ever in the world has been drawn in Spain.

"El Gordo" (or "Fat One") is an annual event that this year was worth $1.26 billion in total prize money.

The draw has spawned a virtual tourist industry with players travelling across the country to purchase tickets at locations that previously sold tickets with winning numbers.

On Saturday, the entire nation was on tenterhooks, with crowds huddling by television sets in bars and living rooms, waiting to see whether their five-digit number would be the lucky one.

The combination of numbers that sold out quickest this year was 11,901, known as "Bin Laden's number" because it represents September 11, 2001 -- the day of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

The winning numbers were sung out, in traditional fashion, by schoolchildren. The winning number for the grandprize was 18,795.

One of the big winners was a folkloric music and dance company on the Canary island of Tenerife.

1,700 share prize

Its members reaped $80 million after buying 500 tickets with the lucky number, state lottery officials said.

"They deserve this money. They are hardworking people," lottery ticket vendor Menchu Mendez told the Associated Press.

While not only offering the largest prize ever, Saturday's draw also marks the last time 'El Gordo' will be in pesetas.

From next year, the prizes will be given in euros after the currency is introduced in January 2002.

This year, this nation of 42 million people bought more than 100 million tickets, spending a total of $1.7 billion on El Gordo -- an average of $41 per inhabitant, the State Lottery and Betting Association said.

Under a complex share-the-wealth system, El Gordo has a top prize of $1.6 million and up to 1,700 people can share it.

Hundreds of tickets with the winning combination were also sold in the southern province of Murcia.

"It will push up the region's consumption and the gross domestic product. Imagine how many Murcians will now buy a new home, a villa on the beach or a car," regional president Ramon Luis Valcarcel told the national news agency Efe.