Meet the man who has been queuing since Sunday to be first in the audience for Spain's huge Christmas lottery draw

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Jesús Ruiz will hand over the spot to his mother at the very last minute, before proceedings commence at the Teatro Real de Madrid on Monday, 22 December

Sara Torre

Madrid

Thursday, 18 December 2025, 17:44

At the age of 83, Josefa Gómez, known as 'Pepa', will be the first person to enter Madrid's Teatro Real this year to witness Spain's national Christmas lottery draw, featuring the famous El Gordo jackpot prize, on 22 December. Her son, Jesús Ruiz, 'Pelon', is keeping the place for her, having arrived on Sunday 14 December to be the first person in the queue.

He is joined by his friend Juan, the 'bishop of the lottery', from León. Both are members of a WhatsApp group where regulars of this custom share information on their plans to join the queue. "With a month to go, in November, I called him and told him to pack his suitcase because we were leaving in December, after the long weekend," Juan explained.

On Sunday evening, after celebrating his son's birthday, Jesús left Polanco, where he currently lives. His son, who has just turned 19, will also join Juan and Jesús, along with his grandmother on Thursday for the event. At that time, Jesús forecast that other people will have already started to arrive and will gradually join the queue.

He tries to be the first in the queue every year: "If I have to come on 1 December, I'll do it, but I didn't have to, they took it for granted that I was going to be there and didn't beat me to it," he explained. Another tradition that Juan will be keeping again this year will be to go dressed as the Pope.

The good thing about having company is that for the first few days you can take turns so that you don't spend 24 hours out in the open. Instead the early birds take it in turns to sleep in a nearby hostel and have a shower. They even have time to "enjoy a bit of Madrid" and go back to the hostel for a hot shower after getting wet in the heavy rain. They post videos to social media to prove that they really are in the queue.

This "passion" for 'El Gordo' started when he was a child. His greatest memory of Christmas was watching the lottery draw on 22 December, in front of a black and white Radiola TV. "That day was a holiday, there was French toast at home and my uncle would come up and say to me: "Look at the children of San Ildefonso, one day your father will take us to see them". His father always said that they would go and they did.