The lotteries of L’Anxova Milionària de l’Escala, on the Costa Brava, are so nice that Paco Torres agreed to approach the administration in question yesterday afternoon, the only one in town, to make a few statements to journalists there congregated. Otherwise… Yes, l’Escala is mainly known for its anchovies.
“Man,” this 73-year-old neighbor graced by number 89603 reflected as calmly as he was happy, in the company of one of his granddaughters, “I think that in the end the thing will cost me about 160,000 euros. Certainly good money. It doesn’t change your life, but it fixes a lot of things. I’ll go on a little getaway with my wife, that’s for sure, something simple, I don’t think we’ll go to Brazil or Conchinchina or anything like that, but… And also do some renovation in the house, look at a fridge, which isn’t going very well well, also a washing machine… and my wife’s car is already very old!, but it still works, let’s see what she says… What you have to do is enjoy it, the prize, which in this life can always be Whatever happens, one day you’re fine and the next… It’s just that I had three tenths of the Christmas lottery ending in zero and look at you… The truth is that I had never won anything”.
Many people in the area who were in tight situations are sleeping well again
Indeed, as Torres says, a tenth awarded with 200,000 euros does not change your life, in any way, especially once you subtract the taxes, but it fixes a lot of things, an outrage. And so was the tremendously distributed rain of millions that yesterday left the first prize in the Children’s lottery sold entirely in this small town of Girona of just over ten thousand residents. Because many of the lucky ones are retirees from the other side of the Pyrenees who make their lives rather apart on the outskirts of the town, and also a good handful of Barcelonans who usually spend their summers here, but most of them
Some of the winners are hard-working people from the town and its surroundings, people whose mortgage payments or electricity bills didn’t let them sleep in peace until just a couple of nights ago. We are talking about forty series, nothing more and nothing less than eighty million euros.
Two workers from a grocery store, a teacher whose mortgage has just been raised a few hundred euros, a family who, they also say in these streets, recently had their electricity and water cut off…
“For us to give such a big prize and on top of that so distributed is the most”, say the lotteries of the town
A lot of people, in reality, so unaccustomed to having good fortune smile on them that immediately, as soon as they heard the news, they began to send WhatsApp messages to their lotteries to thank them, to say the least, and also ask them what they had what to do, what was the next step –here in L’Escala the coverage is very bad and everything is said by WhatsApp–.
“I have worked all my life in the hospitality industry, doing a bit of everything,” continues Torres, the winner at the beginning of this chronicle with his granddaughter. I have two children and four grandchildren. I am from Barcelona, but my parents set up a pension here in l’Escala when I was thirteen years old. The truth is that I have worked a bit of everything, always in the hospitality industry, but… The prize is to enjoy it and not waste it, because in this life you never know what is going to happen to you…”.
Maite Pérez, from administration number 2 El Pilar, in Zaragoza, toasts with a friend
A supermarket in a very humble area of Figueres also distributed a few million
And the lottery brothers Mónica and Félix Pons Ballesta are exultant, crazy with joy, the sea of content. “This is very strong”, the two say between empty bottles of cava, among friends and relatives partying, in a very endearing and scattered revelry. Because this is the first time that the first prize of the Children’s lottery falls in l’Escala since 1941, according to State Lotteries and Betting, which also reported that previously it had also played in administrations of Girona and Lloret de Mar , both in 2021, from Porqueres in 1996 and from Ripoll in 1998.
The second prize in this draw, number 72289, is also widely distributed. In fact, it fell in around fifty towns and cities throughout Spain.
Winners of the first prize celebrated their luck at the Alexis de Figueres supermarket
“This does not change your life, but it fixes many things for you,” says a graceful man from the town of Girona
“For a lottery player, all this that is happening to us is the best,” continue the two lottery brothers. Our father set up this administration in the mid-1980s, and now we run it.” “We had never distributed any important prize in the Christmas and El Niño raffles. We had given some supermillionaire Primitiva prize, yes. But it is a prize that you give only to one person, and Christmas and El Niño are the Oscars of the lottery! the most!”.
“And on top of that it has been super distributed, the prize, which is the important thing, which is what makes you the most happy. Four hundred tenths sold, to many people who you know really needed help like this. We are talking about four hundred people who have taken 200,000 euros each. We cannot feel better!
The graceful Paco Torres, from l’Escala, with his granddaughter
“We don’t know many of the winners, but some we do. Some have stopped by here, but in a very discreet way, like two who work in a grocery store, who have seen so many journalists that it has given them something, they have waved at us and have continued on their way”.
Most of the winning tickets were sold one by one at the administration window, and around a hundred at the Alexis supermarket, in a very humble neighborhood in the nearby town of Figueres. “We’re trying to talk to the owner, but now she doesn’t pick up the phone… you know that the money is going to fall very well there!” These lotteries are so nice that they even gave away a few jars of anchovies and stuffed olives to the journalists who attended his administration, and they also filled their bellies.
Thirteen years of fidelity for 3.5 million
The Calusa cafeteria, in Las Cabezas de San Juan (Seville), distributed 3.5 million euros yesterday from the third prize in the Children’s raffle. They sold 140 tenths of 18918, the number they have been playing for 13 years. “Many winning customers have come,” its owner, Francisco Javier Ferrera, 36, celebrated yesterday, “very happy” to have distributed luck in this municipality of 16,000 inhabitants. The ballots were bought at Guillena’s number 2 administration. Of the 200 tenths consigned there, 140 were kept by Ferrera, who repeats this number every year, as if it were a ritual, in the Christmas raffle and in the Children’s raffle, convinced that at some point he would play, as happened yesterday. In the last Christmas raffle, he distributed more than 30 series of 18918 among his clients. Now, there have been 14, which means that he has brought joy to some 140 people because “it is very rare for someone to carry two”, like him .
