Natalia Escudero, TVE reporter, quite live on air following her lottery win. She later found out it was only worth around $8000. Video / CGTN Europe
A Spanish television reporter appeared to celebrate and quit her job on live television after realizing she had a winning lottery ticket. It was a decision for which she would later apologize.
On Sunday, Valencia community journalist Natalia Escudero was covering Spain's annual Christmas lottery, called El Gordo (The FatOne), when she found out that she was also a winner.
The state-run lottery is the world's richest draw, boasting €2.24 billion (about $3.7 billion) in prizes, according to the Guardian. Nearly 15,000 people can have a winning ticket that pays in different amounts, according to travel website Barcelona Yellow.
The winning number this year was 26590, and Escudero was one of the lucky ticket holders to have the correct number for a prize worth €400,000 ($665,000) for each ticket. But the prize money can be split multiple ways, and Escudero would soon learn about the complexity of the distribution.
"I'm not going in tomorrow," she said, wagging her finger in front of the camera with her bangs shaking in unison. "Natalia doesn't work tomorrow. Woo!"
Lottery ticket sellers Laura Puentes, left and her husband Pablo Montil spray Cava at the request of some TV journalists at the store where the winning tickets were sold. Photo / AP
Her news station-based colleagues smiled and laughed at her excitement. Escudero's winning was news to them, one of the anchors told viewers.
The crowd behind Escudero jumped and chanted with their lottery tickets in hand.
Escudero paused some of the excitement to interview a fellow lottery winner about what she intends to do with the money.
The woman smiled under the arm of a loved one and said she planned to pay off her debts and live, she told Escudero.
Another woman told Escudero she couldn't believe her good fortune as she spoke into Escudero's microphone with her lottery ticket going in and out of the shot.
"It's true! It's not 'The Truman Show,'" Escudero exclaimed, referencing the 1998 movie starring Jim Carrey, in which his character discovers his life is actually a televised simulation.
The crowd started jumping again with bubbly spraying the air. Some got into Escudero's eyes.
Children from Madrid's San Ildefonso school pick out lottery ticket numbers at Madrid's Teatro Real opera house during Spain's bumper Christmas lottery draw in Madrid. Photo / AP
Forty tickets had been sold at her reporting location with the winning number worth €16 million, she said into the camera. She pulled the woman who sold her a prize-awarding ticket and kissed her on the cheek as champagne sprays continued.
She repeated her lottery number and said she would never forget it. Her fellow anchor at the news station joked that she, too, now had the digits seared into her mind and that Escudero would need a tattoo of it.
But Escudero would later learn that her share of the jackpot was only €5000, or about $8300, BBC reported.
A Spanish lottery ticket costs €200, the Sun reported. So to make the game easier to enter, people can buy a decimo, or a 10th of a full ticket, for €20. This is what Esucdero, and probably those celebrating around her, actually bought. So her winning number was only worth a 10th of a full ticket's share of the prize.
Hundreds of tickets with the same series can be sold, according to Barcelona Yellow.
Some members of the public and Spanish media accused her of being unprofessional and duping viewers about her earnings. Escudero tweeted an apology for anyone who felt deceived by her reaction. The past few months have been difficult, she said, and the win was the first time she has felt some good fortune.
Escudero was disheartened that she had appeared to undermine her 25 years of experience.
One thing was certainly true: She wasn't going to work the next day. Escudero was starting her holiday break and getting ready to celebrate her "delicious pinch" of good luck, she said.
It's unclear if Escudero is still an employee at RTVE.
