The journalist who guessed the Christmas lottery jackpot

He was “the guy with the intuition,” as Wenceslao Fernández-Flórez said. The man who won the big win after predicting his number would win a prize. Only the story of Jose Blanco Diaz was real and the theory of the author of “The … animated forest” was lost with him. According to the writer and journalist, originally from La Coruña like Blanco, the biggest prizes have never been awarded. You could get “six duros, ten, a thousand pesetas”, but from this sum, there were no more costs. The ABC columnist said with humor that the State had constituted “a sort of Freemasonry” and from the Director of the Treasury to lotteries, everyone was sworn to secrecy. The lucky ones were also members of this mysterious society, the only organization that, according to Fernández-Flórez, the Spanish state could present as a model. “Everything is perfectly studied, and The stuffing is unbeatable. But believe us, jackpots don’t exist“In fact, none have been paid since the invention of the lottery,” he wrote in 1918.

“A few of us know. Some of us lost a lot of money without ever receiving a decent sum,” added the writer, who, among the roles of this troupe, stood out for the one that the State took care to play well. ” intuition “ He received appropriate instructions in a timely manner. Shortly after, he told his friends that he had dreamed that the Fat Man would match a number, he bought it and a journalist, also affiliated with “Freemasonry”, interviewed him before winning the raffle prize. “Naturally, after that, any man who dreams of a number looks for it and pays whatever he asks,” Fernández-Flórez said.

The journalist and bullfighting critic José Blanco Díaz did not dream of El Gordo. “La Hoja Oficial del Lunes” published a weekly report from local journalists and that of December 22, 1952 corresponded to the editor-in-chief of “El Ideal Gallego”. The mission was clear: I had to write something related to the Christmas lottery. “Blanquito,” as his classmates called him, thought about how to approach the problem with originality and he thought about considering the number he played as a prize, questioning those who shared it with him to find out their new rich plans. The same day of the draw, his report was published, with on the front page a photograph of one of the interviewees with the six series of number 25.766 that he was holding in his hand. “Today we play”had the title of the picture and at the bottom it said: “Keep them, keep them well, my friend, because ninety million can correspond to the small number. If the trick succeeds, the name of La Coruña will be heard; “All that remains is for the little ball to say its last word.”

The prophetic report continued in three columns on the back and in one of the paragraphs it said: “In all six series of issue 25,766, beautiful wherever you look! there are many illusions; in this issue which carries within it the echo of some beautiful ideas. Famous families from La Coruña would see the course of their lives completely change if these five characters were planted like arrows at the forefront of Spanish news (…). The game has not yet played its cards when these lines see the light of day. So, fortune? Smoke?“.

Blanco Díaz won one and a half million pesetas and he celebrated it in the editorial office of “El Ideal Gallego” with a few drinks after a busy day. “After so much emotion, receiving congratulations and hugs, and reporting from the streets of his city to serve the newspaper where he works, he went to bed completely exhausted,” ABC said the next day. According to his partner Jorge Víctor Sueiro, “Blanquito” he valued journalistic success more than economic success. His historic victory allowed the reporter to leave his other job as chief accountant of the Supply Delegation and to devote himself fully to journalism. If this was an actor affiliated with the secret society that Fernández-Flórez was talking about, he played his role of “guy with intuition” perfectly.

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