Did Derren Brown Predict the Lottery Results?
What are the Chances of Winning the Lottery?
Sep 18, 2009
Lotteries take place all over the world in slightly different formats. In Britain the Lotto comprises 6 unique numbers between 1 to 49 inclusive, and the chance of winning is as little as almost 1 in 14 million. The odds are based on the number of possible permutations of numbers. How to calculate the number of permutations and, therefore, how to calculate the odds against winning is a fairly straightforward matter of arithmetic.
The National Lottery is totally unpredictable because each number has an equal chance of being selected on every occasion so there is no possibility of any pattern to the results being discovered. Each lottery draw is genuinely random. Previous winning numbers have no influence over the results of future draws.
Chance of Winning the Lottery
There are some common misconceptions among the general public about their chances of winning the lottery. Some people religiously stick to the same numbers thinking that this increases their chance of success. People avoid sequential patterns, such as 1,2,3,4,5,6 but these are as likely to be the winning numbers as any other combination.
Derren Brown & the National Lottery
On Wednesday 9th September 2009 illusionist Derren Brown spectacularly predicted the results of the British National Lottery live on T.V., followed by an hour long show revealing how he might have done it.
Brown explained the elaborate lengths someone would have to go to in order to fix the results by substituting specially manufactured, weighted balls. This would be illegal as well as incredibly difficult. Brown is a highly regarded, British showman and mentalist. He is also well known for creating illusions, for hypnotism and for mind reading, he categorically states, however, that what he achieves is through suggestion and misdirection not camera tricks and he uses no stooges. There are no mysterious magical or psychic powers behind his shows.
How Did Derren Brown Predict the Lotto Numbers?
In the special show which promised to reveal all, he implied that the numbers he predicted were the result of averaging predictions made by a selected team of 24 people. He suggested there was a pattern to the randomness. The team had examined past results and then made individual predictions inspired by their own subconscious.
According to the mainstream media reports few if any journalists were convinced that the winning numbers were to be found in group subconsciousness. Notably the predicted numbers were not revealed until after the actual lottery draw although the balls they were written on had been in view of the camera before the actual lottery. Camera trickery or sleight of hand are suspected by most people reviewers and it is suggested that Brown could take advantage of a few seconds delay between an actual event happening and it being broadcast.
Brown did not reveal how he did it but consensus is it was an illusion or a trick.
A Pattern to Random Numbers
Brown suggested that there is often order to be found even among things which may seem to be random. There can be many examples of this statement being true, but all mathematical brains are in agreement that there is no pattern to lottery numbers. There is no mathematical model which could be used to predict the numbers with great accuracy for one particular draw.
Whether it is possible to predict the results of the Lottery is a different question. Mystics and fortune tellers may make claims about the future, but as yet there is no evidence that the lottery can be predictable.
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