(22 Dec 2016) :Celebrations erupted across Madrid on Thursday after all the tickets with the top prize-winning number in Spain's 2.6 billion-euro ( 2.7 billion-US dollar) Christmas lottery were sold in one city neighbourhood.
The number 66513 appeared on 1,650 tickets in the lottery known as 'El Gordo' (The Fat One), with each ticket holder winning 400-thousand euros (418-thousand US dollars).
The winning tickets are normally sold in several different lottery offices around the country but this time they were all sold from one office in the modest Acacias neighbourhood of the Spanish capital.
A number of ecstatic winners spoke to media outside the lottery administration office.
Other lotteries have larger individual top prizes but El Gordo, which dates from 1812, is ranked as the world's richest for the total prize money on offer.
This year it dished out 25 million prizes.
Standard tickets cost 20 euros (21 US dollars) and people traditionally chip in and buy shares in several tickets with friends, family or workmates.
Queues form outside lottery booths weeks ahead of the December 22 draw and people tune in across all media on Thursday to find out if they are among the lucky ones.
The prize ticket numbers are sung out by pupils of Madrid's San Ildefonso School in a nationally televised event from the city's Teatro Real opera house.
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