Impoverished Spanish city hits the jackpot in El Gordo

With wide smiles, elated lottery winners popped bottles of sparkling wine yesterday in the southern beach city of Roquetas de Mar, where tickets bearing the top prize number in Spain’s Christmas lottery were sold.

The winning number — 79140 — appeared on 1,600 ‘décimo’ tickets in the lottery known as El Gordo (The Fat One), with each of those tickets winning €400,000.

The lottery has taken on special importance in recent years as Spain struggled through a property bubble and the European debt crisis.