"This could have been the year when 70-year-old Joaquin Rodríguez didn't play the Christmas lottery. It would have been the first time he skipped the world-famous 'El Gordo' gamble in 50 years, but stranger things have happened in Spain recently. The left-leaning prime minister turned his back on the unions to appease investors, for instance. And earlier this month, the government declared a state of emergency for the first time since General Franco and placed the fate of the country's air traffic in the hands of the Spanish military.
Even stranger in this topsy-turvy world, Mr Rodriguez, a retired taxi driver, didn't win a thing last year, not even one meagre break-even prize in the world's largest payout. He bought €400 worth of losing tickets.
But in hard times, tradition beckons. Two of Mr Rodriguez's six children are unemployed, and all of them are 'up to the neck' in debt. So on Thursday, Mr Rodriguez doled out €300 for 15 tickets.
'I wasn't going to buy at all this year, but this guy over here led me to the path of vice,' he said, winking at a crony standing in the long line at a state lottery vendor in the Puerta del Sol. 'I'll give them to my children to lift them out of the crisis. It's a foolish hope, very foolish, but I keep hoping.'"

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