By Bill Bond In Madrid

The world's biggest gambling competition, Spain's Christmas lottery, has reached its climax in Madrid.

A staggering 1.6bn euros ($1.6bn) of prize money has been won.

The winning ticket was number 08103

The first prize in this mammoth lottery is known as El Gordo, the fat one.

This year each full first prize ticket was worth nearly $2m - and there were 180 of those, each bearing the number 08103.

During a three-hour prize ceremony, one of the highlights of the Spanish holiday season, the children who traditionally sing out the winning numbers sang them in euros for the first time.

Football club's joy

The winners came from all corners of the country - including Granada and Cordoba in the south, the capital Madrid, Segovia in the mountains just north of the capital and Alicante on the south-east coast.

But the biggest single win came in Velez Rubio, a dusty village of 4,700 inhabitants, in the southern province of Almeria.

The local amateur football club bought and then resold 80 first prizes, netting some $160m for their players, friends and supporters in the village and the surrounding countryside.

As the chairman of the soccer club joked, if all the prize money had gone to the club they would have been able to buy Ronaldo three times over.