Employees at a lottery shop in Sanlucar la Mayor, southern Spain – where the winning number of El Gordo was sold – celebrating with champagne. Photo: Marcelo del Pozo/Reuters

The winners of Spain’s cherished Christmas lottery – the world’s richest – celebrated around the country on Sunday, a moment of joy and relief after another year of a brutal financial crisis.

Millions were glued to their televisions as €2.5 billion in prize money was distributed. The draw is so popular that most of Spain’s 46 million people watched at least part of the live four-hour show, hoping they would hear their ticket as schoolchildren called out the lucky numbers.

Unlike lotteries that offer one large jackpot, Spain’s Yuletide drawing sprinkles a variety of winnings on thousands of ticketholders.

The top prize – known as El Gordo (The Fat One) – gave lucky winners €400,000 per ticket, while the second-best number netted them €125,000.

However, for the first time, the taxman will claim 20 per cent of winnings above €2,500, as the Spanish government strives to right an economy saddled with a sky-high unemployment rate of 26 per cent.

Ticket buyers often spoke of spending their winnings on new cars or second homes by the beach... Now many Spaniards are just hoping to avoid having their homes or cars repossessed

Winning El Gordo tickets this year were sold in at least eight locations throughout the country, including a working-class suburb in Madrid and the northern industrial city of Modragon, where large electrical appliance manufacturer Fagor Electrodomesticos filed for bankruptcy in October.

El Gordo winner, Raul Clavero, 27, a mechanic living in the Madrid suburb of Leganes, said he had been watching the drawing in bed when he realised he had won.

“We jumped out of bed and ran out,” he said, adding that he would “pay the mortgage, that’s the first thing, and then just enjoy the rest”.

Clavero said he was one of five members of his family who had bought the same number ticket.

The entire lot of second-prize tickets – worth €1.3 million – was sold in the town of Granadilla de Abona on the Canary Island resort of Tenerife.

Among the audience watching the draw in person at Madrid’s Teatro Real Opera House was Jesus Lorente, who said he bought his second-prize ticket at a gas station in Granadilla de Abona.

The beaming 27-year-old caterer said he would use his winnings to “plug gaps” in his personal finances.

Before Spain’s property-led economic boom imploded in 2008, ticket buyers often talked of spending their winnings on new cars or second homes by the beach or going on fancy vacations. Now many Spaniards are just hoping to avoid having their homes or cars repossessed.

“The ticket is stored in a safe place at home,” Lorente said.