Lucky move to Bayarcal (Almeria) brought lottery luck to two families

THE advertisement for the mammoth Christmas lottery, which is Spain’s John Lewis moment, this year features Bayarcal in Almeria.

“Destiny changed Bayarcal’s luck when this village with 317 inhabitants most needed it,” the advertisement announces, going on to explain that the local school did not have to close after three families moved there in 2014.

“They changed Bayarcal’s luck and Bayarcal changed their luck,” the narrator continues.

Bayarcal, like so many small inland municipalities, was suffering from depopulation and the Alpujarra Alta state school was threatened with closure.

At this point, the town hall offered three municipally-owned properties to families with at least three children of school age so that the school could remain open.

The offer, which included the possibility of renting agricultural land at a nominal rent, attracted offers from Guadalajara, Granada and Almeria.  A year later, two of the three families that eventually went to live in Bayarcal bought a “decimo” in the Christmas lottery in Laujar de Andrarax, where their elder children attended the high school.

“It’s amazing how luck is shared out,” Bayarcal’s mayor Jacinto Navarro said at the time.  “They called me, so excited, saying that Bayarcal was the best thing that ever happened to them.”

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