A spectator waits for the start of the annual Christmas lottery draw, known as El Gordo, or The Fat One, at Madrid's Teatro Real, Spain, on Sunday, Dec. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

MADRID (AP) — For weeks, Spaniards had anticipated the arrival of “El Gordo” or “The Fat One.”

But unlike Santa Claus, El Gordo arrived three days before Christmas, before noon on Sunday.

El Gordo is the first prize of Spain’s hugely popular national Christmas lottery, which is said to be the world’s largest based on the total prize money involved, even though other lotteries have larger single prizes. This year’s draw will spread riches totaling 2.7 billion euros (around $2.8 billion), much of it in small winnings.

Several ticket holders with the number 72480 won the top prize, worth 400,000 euros (roughly $417,000) before taxes. The winning tickets were sold in Logrono, a city in northern Spain’s La Rioja region that is known for its wines.

Multiple tickets with the same number can be sold to different groups and full tickets are divisible into 10 parts. Buying and sharing these fractions, known in Spanish as “decimos” or tenths, is a popular tradition in the run-up to Christmas. Families, friends, and co-workers often take part, usually spending 20 euros (about $21) each.

On Sunday, young students from Madrid’s San Ildefonso school selected the numbers from two revolving orbs in the capital’s Teatro Real opera house and sang them out in turn for nearly five hours in a cadence familiar to Spaniards. After “El Gordo” was announced, audience members — some dressed in costume as Don Quijote, Christmas elves, Biblical wise men and the lottery itself — began streaming out of the venue, from which the event was televised nationally.

The lottery works on the premise of distributing the most winning numbers to the largest number of people possible. There are hundreds of small prizes and 13 major ones, including the “El Gordo” winner.

In the weeks leading up to the draw, lines form outside lottery offices, especially those with a history of selling prize-winning tickets in previous years.

Spain’s Dec. 22 Christmas lottery began during the Napoleonic wars in 1812 and has continued largely without interruption since then, even during the Spanish Civil War.