Tradition, hope and the desire to win: three sociological keys to Spain’s Christmas Lottery:
By Patricia Abad · Head of Qualitative Research at GAD3
Once again, 22 December is approaching and with it the Spanish National Lottery’s Extraordinary Christmas Draw. In recent days, many of us will already have seen the television adverts, and those of us of a certain age may even feel a sense of nostalgia when recalling the campaigns starring Clive Arrindell, the British actor who entered our collective memory as “the bald man from the lottery”. In our social circles we talk about the draw, imagining that we might win a prize — ideally El Gordo — while in our ears still echo the voices of the San Ildefonso schoolchildren singing: “Four millioooon euroooos.” And, of course, we also picture those familiar scenes of people celebrating outside lottery offices, wearing Christmas hats and toasting with champagne, once the winning number and the places where it was sold are announced.
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A social phenomenon that goes beyond chance
This event is one of the most significant milestones of the year in Spain and generates enormous social interest that goes far beyond the figures themselves. According to the study “Gaming and Society 2025”, around 75% of the population habitually buy lottery tickets for this draw, with slightly higher participation among women, a sharp increase from the age of 35 onwards, and a concentration among the middle classes (Spanish Gambling Business Council, 2025). This is by no means a negligible figure when compared, for example, with turnout in elections to the Spanish Parliament, which averages around 72% of the electorate over the historical series, according to data from the Ministry of the Interior.
Every year, almost by default — and practically as a tradition — the debate arises as to why so many Spaniards buy Christmas Lottery tickets, even though we are fully aware of how unlikely it is to make money this way. In fact, the probability of winning El Gordo is just 1 in 100,000 (Bankinter, 2025). Yet despite statistics and common sense warning us that spending money on the lottery is a poor investment, year after year we remain astonished. One only has to see the stoic patience with which hundreds of people queue endlessly outside Doña Manolita, hoping that their chosen number will be among the winners.
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Irrationality or social logic? A Max Weber perspective
Many people claim that this behaviour is a clear example of human irrationality but what if it is not? If we turn to Max Weber’s theory of social action, one of the foundational frameworks in sociology, we can argue that buying Christmas Lottery tickets is not in fact irrational, but rather the result of a combination of different forms of rationality.
On the one hand, participation in this draw is driven more by traditional than instrumental rationality. That is, we do not play primarily because we expect to become richer — although that is part of it, but because buying a ticket allows us to continue a tradition that has fostered a sense of community since 1812. Put differently, many people play because this draw forms part of Spanish folklore and, by reflecting this culture in our actions, we feel connected to others. Indeed, the fact that nearly 90% of buyers state that they play the National Lottery out of habit (Spanish Gambling Business Council, 2025) seems to confirm this interpretation.
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Hope, emotion and “preventive envy”
Affective rationality more emotional in nature also plays a major role. On the one hand, it is very common to hear people say they play “just in case the person next to them wins and they do not”, something the authors of the study describe as “preventive envy”, which they believe is likely to be one of the main motivations, as already highlighted in the 2019 edition. On the other hand, this draw awakens hope a feeling closely linked to the expectations we project onto the future, however uncertain it may be by definition, and which invites us to imagine a better life.
Faced with the prospect of an increase in our assets, we begin to project ideas about what we would do with a prize as substantial as €400,000 per ticket. In fact, what truly fuels our hope and pushes us to play is not winning the prize as an end in itself, but the possibility of using it to improve our living conditions. Here, the idea of utility reappears, closing the circle within which both our collective and individual rationality operate.
Thus, increasingly frequent messages in public discourse offer clues as to how people would spend the prize if they won. It is worth asking whether social preferences have shifted, as we may have become more pragmatic and less hedonistic. Years ago, everyday conversations about the Christmas Lottery often included comments about using the money to go on a great trip a way of linking the prize to pleasure and leisure. Today, amid growing concern over access to housing, one hears more and more often: “If I won El Gordo, the first thing I’d do would be to buy a house.”
However, with current price inflation and prize amounts having remained unchanged for years, even winning the top prize would no longer make this possible (Saltos, D., Martín, E., 2025).
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Tradition and emotion outweigh money
One might therefore expect that participation in the draw would soon decline, if the prize is no longer seen as practically useful. Yet when it comes to the lottery, there are many factors at play (no pun intended) behind our decisions, and the traditional and emotional ones appear to tip the balance more than the economic. In any case, if you have made it this far, whatever your motivations for playing and whichever form of rationality inspires you, we wish you the best of luck and a very happy Christmas.
