[A] There are lots of interesting things you can do with old lottery results. You can apply all sorts of analysis on past results, and come up with lots of intriguing things.

Even the lottery companies do it themselves. Many official lottery sites have things like lottery frequency checker tools on them, so you can see how often each ball has been drawn.

But the problem with this kind of analysis, is that it’s entirely useless in predicting what’s going to happen next.

Here’s why…

Lottery Randomness Looks Weird

I know this sounds a bit Douglas Adams but the big problem with randomness is that it can often look so very unrandom.

For something to be truly random, all results have to be possible.

So for there to be any significance in some numbers appearing more often than others, there must by definition be something wrong with the draw process. In others words it isn’t random.

Yes, that’s theoretically possible – but bear in mind lottery companies put an awful lot of effort into ensuring their draws are random.

By all means fire up your Excel spreadsheet, plug in all the past results, and make charts of hit frequency. If you find that kind of stuff fun.

(No offence intended – I’m a maths and probability geek!)

But please don’t be fooled into thinking this kind of analysis will increase your chances of winning the lottery.

It won’t do your chances of winning any harm to play this way, it just won’t improve them any either.

For more help with winning and real stuff you can do to improve your odds, get my free lottery tips course.

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1. Picking Lottery Numbers – Myth 1
2. Lottery Advice – What’s Your Game?
3. Can Anyone Predict What Lottery Numbers Will Be Drawn..?

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!

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…

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3. Don’t Miss The EuroMillions Superdraw Jackpot This Friday…

Whilst designer clothing is not at the top of the pairs shopping list, they plan to pay off their mortgages and give money to the eight children they have between them.

But they both plan to continue working at their jobs with Dungeness Power Station in Kent. “Nobody at work knew we were naturists…” said Brian. I have I feeling the secret is probably out now..!

The couple played just three lines a week, mostly made up from family birthdays. Of course playing birthdays is not going to give you a better chance of winning as the wise players here will know. But it does give you a reason to adjust the way you play – unless you want to share your jackpot with lots of other lottery winners it makes sense not to play too many birthdate numbers.

What do you think? How many birthday numbers (1-31) do you play in a line? How many birthdate numbers in a line would it take before you rejected a randomly generated entry? Add your comments below.

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George W. Bush often uses the phrase “like totally”. No, like he does, like totally!

Surely this annoying phrase is only used by teenagers, isn’t it?

Well actually a linguist at the University of Pennsylvania, Mark Liberman, found that “like totally” is widely used by men and women of all ages. And incredibly middle-aged men use it most. So say what you like about GW, he isn’t cool, or even trying this time .

This belief that if something feels new to us then it must be new to everybody else too, is actually known as the infrequency illusion. We have a natural tendency to overestimate our own personal experience and not step back and look at the big picture.

This is why the less wise lottery player often convinces themself that they have discovered a significant secret to beating the lottery.

Here’s what I mean.

Take wheeling systems. And especially wheeling systems sold by people who like to use lots of testimonials to prove how effective their ’systems’ are (whilst being careful not to make any claims they would have to legally substantiate…).

The conclusion the buyer is supposed to reach is that wheeling improves your chances of winning because look at all the people who have won using it. The reality of course should include looking at the much larger group of people who have not won whilst using the same system.

Another example.

It’s quite common to hear people say:

“don’t play consecutive numbers such as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 – they will never win”.

But step back and look at the bigger picture and you’ll find plenty of other combinations that have never won either. That’s because it takes a lot of draws to average out a jackpot win for each of 10’s of millions of possible results.

Even the longest running lottery in the world (yes, the Netherlands!) has had less than 15,000 draws. And most lotteries have had less than a few thousand draws!

But of course, those other results that have never won don’t get mentioned, because the numbers are not as visually pleasing to the eye.

So next time you see something that looks significant about the lottery results, step back a moment and consider if it only looks significant because you don’t have enough information. Because maybe the infrequency illusion has just paid you a visit.

No related posts.

What Derren did was take a woman at random and feed her horse racing predictions. She was aware that she was part of an experiment, and that ‘The System’ was supposed to be a way to guarantee picking winners every time at horse racing.

For the first race she was given a winner and told to just watch the race. Once the predicted winner rode home her confidence was visibly boosted. The next race her own money was at risk. To her great excitement, she won again. A third and fourth time turned her into a firm believer that The System was real, and completely proven. After all, four winners out of four races, what are the chances of that?

The System Explained

For the fifth race, our lucky winner got to meet the creator of The System. And here’s where Derren revealed to her how it all worked. No, he wasn’t psychic or the discoverer of some mathematical miracle. Neither was he plain lucky or working with secret stable insider information. It was simply a con. A well carried out con.

Her perception was that The System worked because she won every race. But this was only her perception, and that of the viewer with the information revealed so far. The reality however was very different. Because she was not the only person in the experiment. In fact, thousands of people all believed they were the only one! Derren had simply covered every possible outcome. The thousands of people who had been allocated the losing horses in race one were simply thrown out with apologies, while all those given the horse that won moved on to race 2. Then Derren simply split them down again between all the horses running, and again only kept those that it turned out had been given the horse that won. Repeated over race three and four, there was just one very happy woman remaining – and thousands of not so happy people who knew The System did not work as promised.

So How Does This Relate To Lottery Systems?

It’s in the promise, and the perception of reality. The promise is that the lottery system can help you pick winning numbers. The perception is that it works – read those testimonials!

It’s quite possible those testimonials are entirely real, but the reality is they come from a very distorted perception. Because if you con enough people into using your lottery system then some are definitely going to win – not because your system works, but simply because you cover all the outcomes!

[NOTE ABOUT SYSTEMS: When I refer to 'lottery system', I mean a piece of software, book or website that claims to help you pick combinations of numbers that are more likely to win, be that through analysing past results or eliminating 'unlikely' results, i.e. misguided rubbish and lies. I don't mean multiple entries by wheeling numbers or using a lottery syndicate or pooled entries.]

Now the likely reality here is that system sellers don’t actually manage to con enough people to cover all the outcomes. But it doesn’t matter because they have this covered too – nobody is thrown out when they lose. All they have to do is say stick with it, the system does work, try again next week. A lucky winner doesn’t ultimately care if they win a lot of money on week 1 or week 101, their perception is they won. The reality is they won due to random chance only, as the thousands of people who lost using the same system should realise.

So the next time you are promised lottery numbers that have a better chance of winning, think about what perception of reality you’re actually being sold.

And if you’d like to know more your chances of winning the lottery, and the facts about what you can do to increase your chances please subscribe to my free lottery tips course.

What did you think of Derren’s new one-off special? Did you guess early what was going on?

P.S. If you want to know more about how Derren does his crazy mind voodoo check out this video.

Related posts:

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Yes and no!

Yes, any set of numbers can be repeated. Lottery balls have no memory, they don’t remember if they got drawn last week or any other week. That means they have just as much chance of being drawn this week.

In fact, last weeks winning numbers have exactly the same chance of being drawn this week. Which is of course, exactly the same chance as any other set of number being drawn. And that’s why it “never” happens. Because there are millions of other combinations just as likely to come up, it’s much more likely winning numbers won’t come up again simply because there are a hell of a lot more of them.

Think of a dice. If you throw a 6, then roll again, are you now more or less likely to get a 6? The 6 is still there on the dice exactly the same as it was before. So of course, it still has the same 1 in 6 chance of being rolled. There is more chance of not rolling a 6, but only because there are 5 other numbers there. Just like before you rolled the 6 in the first place.

So yes, any set of numbers can be repeated. But no, they are no more likely to be drawn.

The danger again is in the myth and fake knowledge spread by ignorant people. Some people think winning numbes are more likely to be drawn again, so they pick numbers that have won the jackpot before – which means sharing the jackpot with all of them if you pick those numbers too…

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1. Picking Lottery Numbers – Myth 1
2. Can Anyone Predict What Lottery Numbers Will Be Drawn..?
3. Which Lottery Has The Best Odds Of Winning?

Lottery number prediction is a total lie, nobody can predict what numbers will or will not be drawn. They just want your money, don’t give it to them!

Lottery organisers spend an enormous amount of time and plenty of money on ensuring their lottery draws are random. The balls and draw machines are carefully manufactured to fine tolerances, stored carefully and securely, and replaced regularly. It’s very important to lottery organisers to ensure their draws are random.

But it shouldn’t come as any surprise to find that someone trying to sell you a system will try to convince you that draws are not random, that there is some mystical way of analysing the numbers that reveals patterns. But if you truly had such a system, why would you be making money selling it to anyone… wouldn’t you just use it yourself to win the lottery instead..?

Read my free lottery tips course for more information about why lottery systems are a lie, and what you can really do to improve your chances of winning.

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1. Picking Lottery Numbers – Myth 1
2. Are Winning Lottery Numbers Repeated?
3. Recommended Lottery Numbers..?

To avoid any chance of being sucked into the myth, I’d like you to suspend your normal perception of how a lottery works. Imagine the lottery draw is made using a lottery machine, full of lottery balls as normal, but there are no numbers on these balls – no markings at all in fact. In this draw machine there are 49 little balls but each one is a different colour – reds and greens and yellows and blues. But no other markings. None.

So, you win this lottery by picking colours from a colour chart – a bit like the old fashioned way of choosing paint (before we had clever ‘pick anything you want’ colour matching and mixing machines!). If six balls the same colour as the ones you chose get drawn, you hit the jackpot… and then you can start thinking numbers again, very big numbers

Now would it seem sensible to you that the chances of any combination of 6 colours being drawn out of the machine, is exactly the same as any other combination of 6? Would it make sense to that there is no better chance of Red and Yellow and Pink and Green, Orange and Purple appearing..? Even though you may recognise the pattern of colours as being most of a rainbow (can you Sing A Rainbow Too ?) it doesn’t mean they are more likely to appear!

So can anyone tell me why so many ‘lottery experts’ throw out combinations such as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, or 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35 or 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42 on the grounds they are ‘unlikely combinations’? Yes, our brain sees a pretty pattern, just like the rainbow, but those balls don’t know anything about them being a pretty pattern. Neither does the draw machine. So just because you allocate a number to a ball instead of a colour why on earth would that make it less (or more!) likely to jump out of the machine.

So next time you see anyone selling a lottery system that claims to pick better numbers, can you please send them an email asking them why they exclude combinations like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Then send their answer to me so I can laugh as another self proclaimer expertly shoots themselves in the foot.

[Footnote: There is a reason not to select certain combinations of numbers, but it has nothing to do with chances of winning. More on that another time.]

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1. Picking Lottery Numbers – Myth 1
2. Recommended Lottery Numbers..?
3. Can Anyone Predict What Lottery Numbers Will Be Drawn..?