MADRID -- After another brutal year of economic hardship, Spaniards across the country are hoping for relief when the country's famed Christmas lottery — the world's richest — pays out $3.3 billion in tax-free awards on Saturday.

Almost everyone in the country of 46 million people will be glued to live TV to watch school children sing out the winning numbers for the lottery that pays out maximum prizes of $529,840 and many more for smaller amounts. The top prize is dubbed "El Gordo" ("The Fat One") and is likely to be won by hundreds if not thousands of players.

Unlike other big lotteries that generate just a few big winners, Spain's lottery — now in its 200th year — has always aimed for a share-the-wealth-system rather than a single jackpot, and thousands of numbers yield at least some kind of return.

The Christmas lottery is so popular that there are frequently three $26 tickets sold for every Spaniard, and the lottery itself is the unofficial kickoff of the holiday season.

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"A lot of people win," said Pablo Foncillas, a marketing professor at the IESE Business School in Madrid. "It's really common even if you don't win to get a free ticket. So many people win that people just keep on playing. Everyone knows someone who's won, even if it's only a little bit."

Hundreds of players lined up daily to buy tickets this week outside the Dona Manuelita lottery store in Madrid, which has often sold winning tickets.

Before Spain's property-led economic boom collapsed in 2008, they had hoped to win so they could buy a small apartment or a car. Now people said they need the money just to hang on to what they have and avoid being evicted or having cars repossessed.

Betting that tickets from Dona Manuelita stood a better chance of winning, unemployed construction company office manager Miguel Angel Ruiz drove 100 miles to buy for a pool of players including his wife and relatives.

"We're buying more hoping we'll hit it so we can emerge from poverty," said Ruiz, 39. "Before the crisis, lottery winnings were to buy an apartment or a car, and now it's to pay debts."

Diego Sanbrano, let go from his waiter's job two months ago, said the Spanish lottery isn't about getting rich and never working again.

"It's to pay off debts and straighten out your life," he said. "You pay the mortgage and make the car payment, and then maybe you have a little left over to go somewhere on vacation."

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Updated at 12:45 p.m. ET: LONDON - The winner of a lottery prize worth more than $100 million will lose the money if the ticket holder does not come forward in the next few days, organizers in the U.K. warned Wednesday.

Under lottery rules, the “truly amazing” and “staggering” prize will go to “good causes” supported by the U.K.’s National Lottery unless it is claimed by 11 p.m. local time (6 p.m. ET) on Wednesday next week, the organizers said in a statement.

“If you play EuroMillions and think you could have the winning ticket, check in the pockets of your clothing, in wallets, bags and down the back of the sofa – you could literally be sitting on a fortune!” it added.

The ticket for the EuroMillions lottery draw on June 8 was bought in the Stevenage and Hitchen area of England.

The hunt for the winner in the U.K. comes amid growing excitement in the U.S. about the Powerball jackpot, which is now worth $550 million.

'There's still hope'
The winning numbers were 5, 11, 22, 34, 40 with the “lucky stars” 9 and 11.

A spokesman for Camelot, which runs the National Lottery, told NBC News that they were doing their best to publicize the existence of the unclaimed ticket.

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He said there was initially a publicity campaign in the Stevenage and Hitchen area, but this was now being expanded across the U.K.

The spokesman said they had also taken the campaign to nearby Luton Airport, which offers flights to 90 destinations worldwide, including South Africa, Thailand, Morocco, Spain, Israel, Iceland, India and China – but not the U.S. or Canada.

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He said the biggest lost prize in the lottery’s history was more than $14 million, but added that a $4 million prize had been claimed on the last day it was available in 2009.

“While there’s still time, there’s still hope,” he said.

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Romeo Ranoco / Reuters, file

Ex-Philippines President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is escorted by an aide after visiting her parents' graves on July 27. She ended about seven months of detention at an army hospital in July after posting bail on election fraud charges.

Updated at 8:50 a.m. ET: MANILA -- Former Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was detained on Thursday on charges of plunder, a crime that carries a maximum penalty of life in jail, in one of a series of corruption cases brought against her.

Less than three months after she was released on bail following about eight months in detention on charges of election fraud, the latest charge against the ailing Arroyo involves the more serious offence of misusing state lottery funds.

"When we arrived at the hospital, she was lying on the bed with an IV attached to her," Senior Superintendent Joel Coronel, chief of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, told reporters. Arroyo, who suffers from a spine condition, was being treated for dehydration.

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Coronel said Arroyo, 65, was "very cooperative" when police took her fingerprints and photos.

The Ombudsman's office alleges that Arroyo and her co-accused unlawfully acquired and accumulated public funds amounting to 366 million pesos ($8.8 million) by diverting lottery funds for personal gain.

Another former Philippine president, Joseph Estrada, was pursued by the Arroyo administration under the same Plunder Law. He was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison, but was pardoned a short time later.

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Aaron Favila / AP

Sandiganbayan Executive Assistant Florecal Sebastian shows a copy of the Order of Arrest on Thursday.

Coronel said Arroyo would remain under confinement at the army hospital where she was held earlier this year.

Arroyo, president from 2001 to 2010, is unlikely to escape detention this time around as the charge under the Plunder Law is a non-bailable offence.

Arroyo also faces allegations of graft over an aborted $329 million national broadband deal with China's ZTE Corp. in 2007. She denies all charges and posted bail on both cases.

President Benigno Aquino's pursuit of charges against Arroyo and the Philippines' success in kicking out her allies -- the Ombudsman and the Supreme Court chief justice -- all within a span of about a year have been cheered by investors as clear signs that the government is serious in its anti-graft agenda.

Arroyo was stopped last year by government agents at Manila's main international airport as she was on her way to board a plane for overseas medical treatment. 

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