There is no way to know which number will be awarded on Sunday with the Gordo de la Christmas lottery. Whether one ball or another comes out of the drums is a matter of chance, pure randomness, a matter of an elusive fortune that makes the chances of us having a lucky tenth with the 400,000 euros of the first prize are very remote, 0.001%according to those who have calculated them. That does not mean that we still try to find ways to bring order to chaos and rely on ‘tricks’ to improve our chances, even though these tricks are based on superstition and their effectiveness is very difficult to defend.
Curiously, this search for ‘tricks’ has meant that this year the Christmas Lottery draw has two protagonists as curious as they are different from each other: ChatGPTand the dana of Valencia.
The Lottery, a difficult romance. In Spain the Extraordinary Christmas Raffle It is more than a simple game of chance. With the passage of time It has acquired the status of an institution, almost of a collective celebration. In fact, for many people it marks the official start of Christmas, with a greater range even than the holidays that are organized in cities to debut their Christmas lighting, increasingly common, ambitious (expensive) and massive.
Beyond the symbolic value of the event, we Spaniards also like to try our luck on December 22. And we are willing to leave ourselves a good pinch in the attempt. The latest estimates from the State Lottery Society (Selae) speak of an average expenditure of 73.84 euros per Spaniard, a couple of euros more than in 2023. In the most juicy The figure even goes above 100 euros. What we seem to be much more uncomfortable with is the inherent randomness of the draw.
Betting on the ‘trick’. This uncertainty is what leads every year many players to base their choice of tenths on certain ruleseven if that is not going to change the chance of the draw or make your chances of success improve. There are those who choose a number based on the month and year of their birth, those who choose a special number or one that has meaning for them, such as a date or a sequence seen on television, and who reviews the newspaper archives in search of the most frequent endings.
It may sound strange (or not), but a quick Google search shows that there are plenty of articles with “tips” either “trick” for “buy the best number”reports in which the terminations are reviewed most awarded historically or even spoken of mathematical ‘keys’ to choose tenth. There are even veteran players, like Richard Lustingwhich encourage following certain numerical rules to “minimize the luck factor”.
You don’t even need to search the Internet. It comes with asking a lottery to verify that people have a special predilection by the capicuas and the “nice numbers” or that buyers are willing to wait in line for hours to buy your tenth in certain ‘lucky’ delegations.
From the dana to the tenths. There are even more curious motivations for choosing a certain number or wanting tenths that come from certain areas. This was recently recognized by Borja Muñiz, president of the National Group of Provincial Associations of Lottery Administrations (Anapal). Although the sector is confident that sales will be good this year in general, online with the campaigns record of 2023 or 2022, there is a specific region where turnover is sure to increase: Valencia.
And all because of the dana, the extreme weather phenomenon that left more than 200 dead and considerable damage in Valencia at the end of October. Whether out of solidarity or a strange superstition, people are demanding a lottery linked to the affected area.
A misfortune, a tenth. “This year the dana is going to increase the average sales, perhaps to five or six tenths on average in Valencia. It is paradoxical, but it is real, people want the Valencia lottery,” Muñiz reveals. “It is requested by individuals and also by other administrations. I think I am not telling anything new, it is a trend: where some misfortune occurs, the sales volume increases […]. People don’t care if the lottery comes from Gandía or Sagunto, as long as it comes from Valencia. And it is selling much more than other years.”
Curious yes, novel no. Muñiz is right. That buyers are demanding the Valencian lottery may be curious, but not surprising. In fact, in a way it was somewhat predictable. The president of Anapal remembers that a similar phenomenon related to the La Palma volcano was already experienced in his day. Their washes also left shocking images and damage valued at several hundred million of euros, although its balance of victims had nothing to do with that of the Valencian Dana.
The eruption began in September 2021 and it lasted 85 days. That December 22, the day of the Extraordinary Christmas Draw, the Canary Islands could boast of being the autonomous community where sales of tickets for the draw had increased the most. Although the average spending per inhabitant of the Canary Islands remained well below that recorded in other regions, Selae recorded sales of 104.8 million euroswith an increase of 26.7%.
If we look back even further, to 2002, we see that the Prestige disaster It also boosted Christmas lottery sales in Galicia. In 2002 The A Costa da Morte delegations found that their sales increased 40%.
The tragic and coveted 29. Anapal has noticed that the Valencia dana seems to be influencing lottery sales in another, even more curious way. “With the recent tragedy that Valencia has experienced with the dana, we have experienced growth in the sale of termination 29, the day of the catastrophe, or the specific date 29104,” he said. recently Muñiz to the Europa Press agency.
This same week Antena3 interviewed to the head of an administration located in Valencia who recognized that 29 has been the “star finish” and even receives calls daily from people interested in getting tenths finished in those two figures. At least in their establishment there is no longer any stock.
Amazing? At all. In 2021 The Confidential spoke with a lottery administration recognizing that there was a particularly high demand for disaster-related numbers. For example, 80121, for the day the snowfall began on temporary Filomenawhich blocked public transportation in much of the country; or 19921, in reference to the eruption of the La Palma volcano. Others opted for more prosaic options, like 00030, a wink on Messi’s number at Paris Saint-Germain.
The other protagonist: AI. Environmental catastrophes or extreme weather events are not the only protagonists of the Christmas Lottery draw. They are now joined by another reference for those looking for the ‘best’ tenth: the artificial intelligence. And its effects are just as curious.
just a year ago For example, news already circulated that ChatGPT had predicted that the number most likely to win would be 03695. Another of the combinations it suggested was 02695. It was not even remotely right. The number that finally came out lucky with El Gordo was 88008the second prize went to 58301 and the third to 31938. And that to the despair of the people (many) who trusted the algorithm. One month before the draw, RTVE revealed that the numbers predicted by ChaGPT had been exhausted in the more than 4,000 administrations of Spain.
“Completely random”. Despite this lack of aim, this year HE have published articles In the same vein as they talk about OpenAI’s supposed AI predictions for December 22. At techopiniones we have directly asked ChatGPT to tell us the number that will be awarded by El Gordo. After refusing twice and reminding us that “the result of the Lottery is completely random”, the algorithm has offered us an option. One that, curiously, is different from the previous two.
Of course, the number arrived with a message included: it is a “random” suggestion. “All numbers have the same probability of winning,” he clarifies. The only thing that is certain is that every December disasters and ChatGPT become protagonists of the draw.
Images | Aiaraldea Gaur eta Hemen (Flickr) and State Lotteries and Betting 1 and 2
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