Every day I see another crazy claim about how certain results can never happen on the lottery. Or how you can avoid unlikely combinations, and other such total rubbish.

Well stick this story in your pipe and smoke it all you sellers of those crazy lottery systems!

Same Six Numbers Two Lottery Draws In A Row

On 6th September the numbers 4, 15, 23, 24, 35 and 42 were drawn on the Bulgaria lottery.

Then, the very next draw on 10th September exactly the same numbers were drawn again!

Eeeek! Impossible craziness right?

But the draw was live on Bulgarian TV. And it wasn’t one of those computer based draws, it was a normal lottery draw machine with balls tumbling around in a drum.

So did Derrren Brown fix the result? Is it some mass conspiracy to undermine trust in the Bulgarian lottery? Have aliens landed and taken over Bulgaria?

No. No. And probably not.

So How Can This Happen?

Let’s flip the question and look at it this way.

If it was impossible for the previous numbers to be drawn again, would that be a truly random lottery draw? If number 4 was less likely to come out because it appeared last time, would that really be random?

Think carefully here.

Randomness can look very odd sometimes. Especially to our highly ordered, pattern loving brains.

The truth is that it’s perfectly normal for things like this to happen when something is totally random.

It is theoretically possible there is something very wrong with the set of balls used. But a lot of checks and measures would have to fail for that to be the case.

Yes, Svilen  Neykov (Sports Minister) was right to order a review. But don’t be at all surprised to find the review finds nothing at all out of the ordinary.

What Can We Take Away From This?

If you look hard enough for patterns in past results, you will find them. But analysing past results will not help you predict lottery numbers.

(If you enjoy analysing lottery results and playing around with spreadsheets, that’s cool with me. I quite like a spreadsheet myself. But please try and avoid jumping to the wrong conclusion and making claims that simply aren’t true.)

UPDATE: The commission concluded their investigation and found no evidence of fraud or manipulation, and no wrongdoing. Surprise!

Related posts:

1. Picking Lottery Numbers – Myth 1
2. Recommended Lottery Numbers..?
3. Picking Better Lottery Numbers… Or Not!

I think we’ve given enough publicity and space over to Mr Brown.

And apart from which Derren fans will shortly all be moving on to talking about how he made them feel stuck to their sofa..! (Control The Nation hits tonight… and I very much suspect he hasn’t just bought a job lot of superglue)

The Trick Explained

So, here’s a great little video that demonstrates the secrets of how the whole split screen camera trick thing works. For anyone still not sure, yes, it was just a trick:-

Watch Closely, See The Trick Revealed…

And if you found that a bit of a let down after all the build up of the ‘predicting lottery numbers’ malarkey, then this alternative explanation should give you some minor chuckle relief:-

[P.S. If you want to know how Derren does his crazy mind trick voodoo check out this video]

Related posts:

1. Derren Brown Lottery – How It Was Really Done
2. Derren Brown – How To Win The Lottery?
3. Derren Brown Reveals Secret Of Lottery System Scams

Glimmer Of Hope..?

To be fair this is the first glimmer of any sense from Xzotto. But I do just mean glimmer so don’t get excited yet folks. On the face of it you would be forgiven for thinking it’s a cool idea.

So What is Floating 5

Well the deal is you pay $30 to join, plus $25 per month – same as before. Plus $4 or $5 per month ticket costs as you have to buy tickets to be included in Floating 5.

Now if a Xzotto members ticket wins, they get to keep 50% of the prize (I know, but stay with me here…). Then 35% goes to the 7 people above them.

Finally three lots of 5% are randomly given to someone else. The 5% bits are Floating 5.

Somewhat Confusing, So Is That Good Then..?

Well, this now makes it a lottery within a lottery (still not a lottery pool!). So if someone else wins, now you play another lottery to see if you win any of their prize money.

So if (as I’m told) there are 3,000 members, that means if one of them wins, then you have a 3-in-3000 chance of getting 5% of their prize. Because there are 3 of those 5% bits and 3000 members who could be chosen. Which is the same as a 1-in-1000 chance.

Just a Bit More Mega Millions Maths…

Now normally the Mega Millions jackpot is odds of 1-in-175 million (so not a good game to choose anyway). And my calculator says that the chances of both a Xzotto Member hitting the jackpot AND you then getting a 5% share of it is therefore 1-in-60 Million.

Disappointed!

Which is actually the same increase in chances as buying 3 tickets yourself…

Except 3 tickets per draw would cost you half as much. And you’d get to keep all of the prize instead of just 5%…

[Now before some bright spark says "but as more members join the chances of one of them winning the lottery increases..." - maybe so, BUT the chances of you actually getting a 5% share get worse at the same time as there are more members it could go to! So overall it doesn't improve.]

Is Floating 5 the genius it claims to be? Does it revolutionise Xzotto and make it a superb lottery pool?

Answers on a postcard to:- Why Does Xzotto Still Suck, Xzotto, Cloud Cuckoo Land, USA.

Related posts:

1. Xzotto Sucks – Here’s Why…
2. Lottery Sums Don’t Add Up To A Jackpot…

A friend recommended it to them, but they wanted to get an expert opinion before spending any money… so can you guess my opinion yet..? 

They say it’s a lottery pool. Well, actually they don’t say that, but their members tend to!

The site actually says:-

create a lottery pool that reaches across the street or around the world

Note the vital use of the word ‘create’…

Xzotto Misses The Point By Impressive Margins!

I think somewhere in the design stage sombebody lost the plot.

Here’s what I mean.

As a lottery player I want to win the lottery.

As an enlightened lottery player, I know those junk systems based on analysing past results are a waste of money.

So I’m really looking for a better chance of winning. Cool, that’s the idea of a lottery pool.

So what does Xzotto offer?

You join for free. You buy your lottery tickets through them at normal price. You don’t get any pooling of tickets. You only get to keep 50% of your winnings.

Huh?

Seriously. No increase to your chances of winning, and you lose half your winnings.

That is what you really get, I’ve checked with them!

But that’s not a lotto pool?

Yeah, I know!

It’s also WORSE than buying a ticket at your local store.

YEAH, I KNOW!

So What’s All This Monthly Subscription Stuff About Then?

In short – it’s one of those business opportunity things. You pay US$25 per month for the ‘Team Management Software’.

Yes, US$300 per year. Forever.

And yes, this sounds an awful lot like just the software needed to run the business opportunity itself…

You still don’t get any lottery tickets or pooling for that. But you do get US$5 a month for all the other people you get to subscribe to the software.

And if the people you introduce, and the people they introduce also buy tickets – note the ‘IF’ – then you get to keep some of their winnings.

But That Sucks Too, Doesn’t It!?

Pretty much.

Suck Reason 1
US$25 per month (forever) is a lot to pay for ANY software. Even Microsoft failed to sell subscriptions to it’s full blown Office software at only US$69 per YEAR. And if you really want software to manage a lottery pool, use a spreadsheet, free!

Suck Reason 2
It’s still not a lottery pool. You have to build your own pool by introducing other people. If you wanted to do that, why bother with Xzotto?

So Why Join?

Xzotto has generated a few thousand members. No, I don’t how either.

I suspect they have all been sucked in by the premise of ‘making a quick buck’, so the lottery side is totally irrelevant to them. They could be subscribing to a Zac Efron fan club for all they care.

But if any Xzotto players can explain why Suck Reasons 1 and 2 are wrong, please do comment below.

Seriously. Open debate. But please don’t just say “I hate you, you don’t understand” like a sullen teenager.

Do you think you get value for money? Is the software genuinely of value, and worth that much? Or is it just acceptable losses until you find enough other people you want to put in the same position… (house of cards style)!?

Related posts:

1. Xzotto Launches Floating 5 (Still Sucks…)
2. Derren Brown Lottery Explained
3. Picking Lottery Numbers – Myth 1

When picking lottery numbers you should NEVER pick the numbers that were drawn last week, because there is no chance they will be drawn this week…

Fact

Last weeks numbers still have EXACTLY the same chance of being drawn as every other combination! (Crazy huh)

Reason

I know it sounds logical at first. Who ever heard of the same numbers being picked twice in a row? Never happened right?

But the reality is it could happen.

Yeah, OK, so it could – but it’s still far less likely than other numbers, right..?

No!

It’s EXACTLY as likely as all the other numbers. Or to put it another way, it’s exactly as UNlikely as all the other possible results.

(Because all combinations are unlikely anyway. That’s the nature of a lottery, there are millions of combinations. So everything is unlikely.)

We Did WHAT Last Week..?!

You see there is no ‘memory effect’ here.

Those little balls have no brains, so they don’t know what happened last week. They just bounce around and pop out again without the slightest idea of what last weeks numbers were.

Don’t Believe The Hype

This myth is exactly the sort of thing those junk lottery systems use to take your money.

We’ll eliminate all those nasty unlikely combinations so you get a better chance of winning…

It’s a nice claim. But sadly it just isn’t true.

So when it comes to picking lottery numbers, excluding past results will NOT help your chances of winning. Right?

Related posts:

1. Picking Better Lottery Numbers… Or Not!
2. The Lottery Number Frequency Myth
3. Repeat Lottery Numbers In Bulgaria!

Just today I came across another ’system’ teaching people to predict lottery numbers by using ‘lottery sums’. What do they mean by using sums for the lottery?

In a nutshell the expert idiot writer meant adding up groups of past numbers, and making silly conclusions about them…

You sum (or ‘add’) the first two numbers, then the second and third groups of two numbers. Then you look at what range the sum totals fall into, and lo and behold based on the last 87 years results from the Albanian Mega-Super-De-Dooper Lotto… there is a pattern..!

Here’s why lottery sums are so dumb:-

1. If you apply completely made up calculations with no logic behind them to sets of numbers in a fixed range – there will always be patterns, because the numbers are in a fixed range!
2. It’s like looking at clouds and making faces, except cloud pictures are fun and not totally dumb…
3. Past results!? What the heck have past results got to do with it anyway. Are you really claiming that the little balls have a life of their own and remember what happened before?
4. Just because they try and use complicated sounding maths terms like ’standard deviation’ does NOT make them clever or right!
5. It’s like saying ‘pick only numbers between x and y because 70% of the past results are in that range’ – yeah, great, that’s because 70%  of any possible result is in that range too! What about the other 30%!?

Of course this kind of dumb analysis makes absolutely no difference at all to your chances of winning. Thankfully it can’t make your chances any worse, but I guarantee it will NOT improve them either.

Hey, I just saw a cute little dog face in last nights lottery results…

Related posts:

1. NEWS: EuroMillions 3rd Biggest Jackpot Ever
2. $50 Million Australian Powerball Jackpot – Largest Ever!
3. Don’t Miss The EuroMillions Superdraw Jackpot This Friday…