He wins 109,333 euros in the Christmas Lottery with a tenth that his lover gave him and he has to share the money with his ex-wife because they were still in a relationship.

The Provincial Court of A Coruña has partially agreed with a man whose ex-wife demanded that he include in the distribution of marital assets the 109,333 euros that he had won in the Christmas Lottery with a tenth that his lover had given him. Although the man claimed that he had not had a relationship with his then wife for almost 10 years, they were not legally divorced and she provided messages and evidence that showed that when she won the prize they were still in a relationship. Taking this into account, justice makes it clear that the winnings obtained in gambling during the marriage are marital.

According to the ruling of January 28, 2026, they had married in 2010, although they lived in different cities. In the Christmas draw on December 22, 2022, the man won a tenth that he shared with his new partner, of which he received 109,333.34 euros.

In 2023, when he divorced his previous partner, the ex-wife requested that the prize be included in the liquidation of the community property, to which he refused, alleging that since 2013 they had no longer maintained any relationship and that the tenth had been given to him.

The Court of First Instance number 15 of A Coruña initially agreed with the woman and agreed to include the 109,333.34 euros in the inventory of marital assets. Subsequently, the Court also confirmed that the prize was marital, but modified the amount that had to be included in the inventory.

There were WhatsApp messages that showed that he was still in a relationship with his wife.

The first thing to take into account, as can be seen from the ruling, is that, in accordance with articles 95.1 and 1392 of the Civil Code, the community property is dissolved, as a general rule, when the divorce decree becomes final. Despite this, jurisprudence allows exceptions when there is a serious, prolonged and demonstrated de facto separation; It is not enough that the spouses have been living in different addresses for years, but it must be proven that they have broken off their sentimental and economic relationship.

In this case, the man claimed that since 2013 he had not lived with his wife and that he had rebuilt his life with other women. However, the Court pointed out that the WhatsApp messages that both sent each other a few days before the draw showed that they continued to maintain a relationship.

On December 10, 2022, the man wrote to his wife: “Pitusa, I already made the transfer for you, I love you, Pitusa” while on December 13 he told him: “Thank you, Pitusa, for coming back to me, I love you”to which she responded: “I love you, husband.”

In addition to these messages, the man regularly made transfers to the woman to pay bills for dental treatment and travel, and had even sent her a credit card so she could use it. The sentence also refers to the fact that, when he won the lottery, he sent her a photograph of the prize in which another woman appeared hugging him, which caused his wife to ask him: “Is he hugging you?”

But one of the most striking pieces of evidence was the statement from the woman who had given him the tenth prize. She explained that she had been in a relationship with him since the end of 2018 and that they had been living together since February 2019. They had even had wedding plans, but when he proposed to marry her in 2021, she discovered that he was still married. According to what he stated, the man frequently traveled to Oviedo claiming that he was going to resolve the divorce proceedings, until he ended up discovering that he was still having a relationship with his wife.

The woman explained that she had broken up with him because “he cheated on me”a statement that, together with the messages and bank transfers, led the Court to conclude that the man maintained both relationships in parallel. For this reason, he rejected the idea that the marriage could be considered broken since 2013, as he claimed.

The Lottery prize is marital, although the tenth was given to him by his lover

Although the man defended that the money was exclusively his because the winning participation had been given to him by his other partner, the Provincial Court recalled that article 1351 of the Civil Code establishes that “the profits obtained by any of the spouses in gambling or those from other causes that exempt from restitution will belong to the community of property”.

Therefore, it does not matter if the tenth was purchased with private money or if it was gifted to only one of the spouses, since the profits obtained in the game during the validity of the community property belong to both. In fact, the ruling expressly states that ““The discussion about whether the lottery ticket was given to one spouse or to both is sterile,” since, once awarded, the money obtained has a marital nature.

However, although the prize had been 109,333.34 euros, part of that money could have been spent before the divorce. In accordance with article 1397.1 of the Civil Code, the inventory must include the marital assets that exist when the matrimonial property regime is dissolved, and not all the amounts that have been obtained during the marriage.

For this reason, the court agreed that not the full 109,333.34 euros should be included, but rather the balance that remained in the man’s bank account on November 10, 2023, the date of the divorce decree. Despite this, against this ruling (SAP C 127/2026) appeal was possible.