Christmas Lottery fever hits Majorca

In Spanish lotteries, the key digit is at the end of the numerical series and research carried out by a company specialising in State lotteries and betting on the Internet - www.Ventura24.es - suggests that the favourite end number this year in the Christmas draw will be number three. Numbers 5 and 9 follow on down the list as likely to be the “terminations” most in demand by people in the Balearic Islands if buying coupons through an official State lottery shop. When it comes to purchasing your “ticket to a fortune” on the Internet, the study shows that the number nine is most favoured, followed by 3 and 5.

At Christmas, the tickets are known as a “décimo,” literally “a tenth,” a reference to the proportion of prize money to which the buyer is entitled.
Here, as elsewhere in Spain, sequences ending in odd, as opposed to even numbers predominate when it comes to gamblers having a seasonal “flutter”.
Public inclination undergoes a change however when asked about preferences for the final two numbers of their numerical sequence. Buying through traditional channels, the favoured final two digits are 1 and 5, whilst on the Internet, it emerges that 1 and 3 are most sought after.

Across Spain, research shows that 13 and 69 are the preferred “terminations”. Purchasing from standard “lottery” shops, 13 (considered unlucky elsewhere in Europe) is the favourite in Andalucia, Cantabria, Catalonia, Madrid, Valencia, Galicia, the Basque Country and Murcia. On the Internet, however, 69 is the order of the day in The Canary Islands, Catalonia, Madrid, Valencia, Extremadura and La Rioja. Third favourite is number 15, not only sought after in the Balearics, La Rioja and Asturias through normal channels but also in Aragon, Cantabria, Castilla-La Mancha, Galicia and Murcia on the Internet.