La Primitiva

One of the oldest lottery games in the world is La Primitiva, the Spanish lottery game (La Primitiva means the primitive one – since it’s so old). The game was first created in 1763 and has been offered by the Spanish government since that time. The really interesting thing about the La Primitiva game is that the rules of the game require that the Spanish Lottery Association award at least 70% of the money taken in from the game to winners, meaning that the percentage of winners is quite high compared with most lottery games.

Game Type

For all that La Primitiva is an ancient lottery game it does provide a very traditional style of play, allowing you to pick six numbers out of a pool of 49 possible choices. Matching six numbers wins the jackpot, which has been as high as €4.3 million, or about $6 million dollars.

Playing the Game

As with most modern lottery games, La Primitiva offers the chance to have the computer pick the numbers for you, meaning that you don’t have to be bothered with trying to come up with your own choices.

If you do decide to play your own numbers however, the most common number is 39 and the least common number to come up for the La Primitiva lottery game is 49.

The game is played every Thursday and Saturday evening and tickets are available from kiosks all over Spain. Those preferring to buy tickets online can do so as well since the tickets are offered from a number of specialized ticket agents which offer lottery tickets to the public at large. You don’t even have to come to Spain to collect your winnings as they can be collected and deposited into your account automatically as needed.

Participating

While the game used to be open only to Spanish citizens and residents, it has more recently been opened to anyone who cares to play the game, as long as they are over 18 years of age. As noted above, you don’t even need to visit Spain to buy a ticket since tickets are offered for sale at a large number of specialized online lottery ticket counters.

Odds of Winning

The odds of winning the jackpot in La Primitiva are 1 in 13,980,000. For the second prize, the odds are 1 in 2,330,636 while third place winners are chosen every 1 in 54,201 times the La Primitiva game is played. The odds of winning the fourth prize are one in 1,302 and fifth prize winners are chosen for every 1 in 57 tickets sold.