Greek only resident of Spanish village not to win lottery
A Greek man was the only inhabitant of the Spanish village of Sodeto that failed to buy a share in the lottery ticket that ended up netting his neighbors a combined total of more than 700 million euros, the New York Times has revealed.
A report by Suzanne Daley describes how all but one of the 70 households in the village decided to pool their resources for the Christmas lottery, known as El Gordo. Their purchase of the winning ticket meant that the minimum amount won by each villager was 100,000 euros.
The New York Times reported that the only villager who did not take buy a ticket was a Greek named Costis Mitsotakis. The filmmaker reportedly moved to the village in pursuit of a woman but despite failing to strike up a relationship, he remained in the village.
Mitsotakis lives in a barn half a mile outside Sodeto and it appears that the villagers overlooked him when they were making the rounds to get neighbors to buy a lottery ticket.
According to the NYT, Mitsotakis said it would have been nice to win. But he has benefited nonetheless. He had been trying to sell some land without much success. The day after the lottery a neighbor called to say he would buy it. The next day another neighbor called. But Mitsotakis refused to get into a bidding war.
?This is a small village,? he said. ?You don?t want bad feelings.?
