Derren Brown - How To Win The Lottery?

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• 1 firm_believer // Sep 10, 2009 at 8:56 pm

  It was real magic.

• 2 lotteryblogs // Sep 11, 2009 at 12:11 am

  Derren said his aim was to predict 5 of the 6 numbers. The chance of winning with 5 balls is 1 in 54200. That’s significantly less than the 14 million for all 6. He must have filmed 54200 combinations over the past year (that’s only 6 per hour).

• 3 Toby Mason // Sep 11, 2009 at 4:16 am

  The first part of the show is pre-recorded. This is so that the viewers think that there is a real ‘cameraman’ pointing the camera (badly) at Senor Brown. What is actually happening is a pre-programmed robot controlled camera is doing the dodgy wobbling and zooming in/out. This is done in advance so that stitching the left and right side of the screen is easy. The first ‘live’ footage is when the rear camera switches back to the supposed ‘cameraman’ footage of Senor Derren in front of the BBC lottery TV (you never see the view from the rear camera again).

  After that, just before Herr Brown writes numbers on the card, the screen does not move for a couple of seconds. This is because the left side of the screen is frozen, aided by the pre-programmed camera movements and reviewed as ‘glitch-free’ in advance, so that someone (maybe a man in a gorilla suit - one of Sir Brown’s favs) can put the correctly numbered balls onto the plinth. Once the camera moves again, the left side is unfrozen so that the Brownmeister can walk across and turn the ‘untouched’ balls….

  I went to see Enigma. McFly my arse.

• 4 GIb // Sep 11, 2009 at 5:01 am

  I doubt he had filmed all combinations though - there are millions. Even covering only 5 out of the 6 numbers would be too many combinations…

  And I think switching to pre-recorded material would be cheating…

• 5 meh // Sep 11, 2009 at 10:11 am

  Derren didn’t expect to win, but due to an astronomical coincidence he did and the ‘How To Win The Lottery’ show on Friday will consist of nothing…

• 6 meastronomo // Sep 11, 2009 at 10:55 am

  I hope he didn’t just brute force all the combinations. I doubt it. That’s not a trick.

  I’m hoping he used some kind of incredible psychic ability or some cleaver trick where he spent lots of time throughout the year with the lottery person that uses the machine and some how psychically subconsciously coerced that lottery person into setting up the balls in in a certain manner, and pressing the button at a certain time etc.

  If he psychically subconsciously did this, I wonder did he get it in the first attempt or make several attempts. If he got it in the first attempt it’s really cool.

• 7 nij0 // Sep 11, 2009 at 10:56 am

  So how does he pick the lottery numbers for tonights show 09/09/09? The winner with the correct answer gets a woooooo and a clap from us all.

• 8 Alex // Sep 11, 2009 at 4:59 pm

  A group of people pick random numbers between 1 and 50 and the numbers are totalled and divided by the number of people. The average outcome will be 25. Without cheating, you can just hope that all the numbers are close to 25.

  One of the numbers picked was 2! This is almost impossible. If 2 people picked a number over 25 for that number it would not have been possible to get 2. It is all trickery, not sure why he chose to include the number 2.

• 9 Alex // Sep 11, 2009 at 5:05 pm

  In addition, I think that the easiest way to pull this off is to just trick people in to what time it is. You wait for the results pick the numbers you want from the draw and then tell people after the event. You only need to change a few clocks, watches and mobile phones. You’ll notice that he did the calculation on the final draw.

• 10 GIb // Sep 11, 2009 at 5:43 pm

  Yeah, exactly Alex.
  Of course all that part was BS.

  The question was whether he really did fix the lottery like he said at the end.

  Was that draw a real draw anyway ? I only ever buy lotto on a Saturday. Is there usually a draw on Wednesday ? Is it on at that time ? Did anyone actually buy a ticket for Wednesday’s draw ?

  It could have been a fake draw, done in the manner Derren described - ie. with the weighted balls.

  Does anyone have a recording of the draw itself from the BBC ? I want to see if the same balls are at the bottom of the container all the time, indicating they’re definitely weighted… The recording I made of Derren’s isn’t good enough quality to see….

• 11 Andy Wild // Sep 11, 2009 at 5:50 pm

  A very clever trick absolutely, but it’s important to note that he DIDN’T PREDICT THE NUMBERS. In order to do that, he would need to show his numbers before the draw. He did not. His ‘prediction group’ were not allowed to see either the numbers that they wrote, nor the ‘averaged’ numbers, so they could easily have been switched. They were also relegated to a separate room for the trick. I really couldn’t see the point of tonight’s (Friday’s) show as it was all obviously a load of rubbish. I don’t know how he did it, I’m leaning towards a camera trick as he didn’t do it in front of a live audience.
  I wonder how many ‘prediction groups’ are being set up across the country as I write???

• 12 tom hedger // Sep 11, 2009 at 6:15 pm

  Derren brown is an illusionist. Therefore he is giving the impression that he can predict the lottery, not that he can do it.

  FIRSTLY:
  If you know the numbers that are going to come out on the lottery, you definitely buy a ticket. even with all the money Brown will get paid for televising this stunt, it will not compare with the millions upon millions he will receive for winning the lotto jackpot. Why on earth would Channel 4 ban him from buying a ticket? he is using explanations that are initially feasible to trick the audience.

  SECONDLY:
  “Predictability in randomness”. Say this to yourself and it is clear it makes no sense. If something is random it is not predictable. By making the woman scared of the mouse in his first trick, he is making her more suggestible sub-consciously to steer her away from picking the 4.

  THIRDLY:
  The coin game. If you read up on basic mathematics, then you will know that your odds of getting HHH on 3 flips of a coin is 1/2×1/2×1/2=1/8. Your odds of getting this combination are exactly the same as that of HTH and of equal likelihood. So why did the red and blue team thing work? because if you look on the “coin page” of this site itself, it mentions that it will “work if you repeat it enough times.”. so this game was obviously played till red team won 9-1, and this section of the game was aired. or just repeated with different groups of people. remember we are dealing with a man who spent 11 hours flipping a coin in “the system” to get 10 heads in a row.

  FOURTHLY:
  “Wisdom of the crowds”. Just have a look at this and listen to how ridiculous it sounds. So if everybody guesses the weight of a bull, and we get an average, we’ll get its exact weight. not at all. Maybe something coincidentally close in 1906 when people generally knew how much a bull would roughly weigh, because FARMING WAS PREDOMINANT, even if that story is true.

  FIFTHLY:
  The 24 people. Remember what he said at the end of the 9.00pm show? That if he had “rigged the machine”, then THE 24 PEOPLE WOULD HAVE BEEN COMPLETELY USELESS. Ever seen the episode where he makes the students guess how many sweets are in the jar using an average? This stunt is but an expansion, and he knows the results of each draw before the crowd, but gets them to come to similar conclusions, similar to “The Gathering”, where 2 digits of “Charlies” phone number was “correctly predicted”.

  THE ‘LIVE’ PREDICTION FIASCO:
  Camera tricks and the rest of it. WHY ELSE WOULD HE BE HOLDING A SNOWFLAKE!!!????

  FINALLY:
  The End point. What is the point in having a 3rd option, where he explains how he “riggs the machine”. where he mentions a possibility of the 24 people being COMPLETELY MEANINGLESS and how the whole thing would have been a trick? He certainly does tell us how he did it in the program. But not directly.

  Bring on the next event.

• 13 Gib // Sep 11, 2009 at 6:43 pm

  I figured the snow flake might have significance, but what significance ? What does that have to do with camera tricks ?

  I figured it might have something to do with the belief that no two snow flakes are similar, but I’m not sure how….

• 14 tom hedger // Sep 11, 2009 at 7:21 pm

  Because snowflakes connotate freezing. Like you can freeze cameras. I figured that might be a possibility.

• 15 Mike // Sep 11, 2009 at 9:00 pm

  The whole 24 person group is simply a misdirection with the number calculator guy as a plant.

  The two possibilities are either a camera trick or if that would be cheating then a simple mechanical switch. This could be achieved by directing the correct numbered balls through a tube using air pressure to the plinth in a similar way to how the lottery balls themselves are moved. These balls could arrive underneath the holder of the original balls and this holder then be rotated so that the new ones are now on top.

  Another possible mechanical method could be to thermally print the numbers on the balls at the plinth from underneath.

• 16 Patrick McTiernan // Sep 12, 2009 at 3:50 am

  The key answer is that Toby Mason was correct in response 3: a robot camera (using DykstraFlex technology) jiggled slightly (only panning, notice, in an empty studio with no witnesses - the SteadiCam operator would deserve a medal otherwise) to give the illusion of a hand-held camera being used while someone (hidden electronically) put the balls in the rack while we were watching. Think back, too, to when the group of 24 individuals that got four balls right in the right order had just one man come out to do the calculations “because he wasn’t very good at automatic writing”. On that occasion, the calculations were done after the results were known… he was an accomplice who just wrote down the answer needed for TV purposes! So the two deceptions perpetrated were (1) the calculating man was an accomplice (2) the fake “hand-held” camera convinced us no camera tricks were used (which they were).
  It’s not that hard when you remember that Derren Brown’s job is an “illusionist”.

• 17 Barry Vickers // Sep 12, 2009 at 7:38 am

  1. First, Derren didn’t predict the lottery numbers. He revealed the numbers AFTER the lottery numbers had been announced. If he could predict the numbers then why not announce them immediately BEFORE they are drawn? He essentially executed a now bog-standard magicians trick.

  2. Second, the mathematical methods he described are utter nonsense. Yes, wisdom of crowds is useful for accurately predicting a bull’s weight, but lottery numbers are random -and they have no mathematical connection with the bull analogy whatsoever.

  3. What the heck is ‘deep maths’? Maths is maths and if something isn’t maths then it isn’t maths. Actually, do you know what we call ‘deep maths’ that actually works? We call it ‘maths’. Misdirection or just blatently selling himself out to the gullable half of viewers? Me thinks the latter.

• 18 Doozy // Sep 12, 2009 at 8:50 am

  The Wednesday live Lotto draw was genuine and the 1sec delay was real, as I watched channel4 and BBC1 simultaneously with picture in picture feAture of my Sony Bravia TV.

  The trick was definately a camera trick with the image vertically split and the left half frozen so the correct balls could be put in position.

  Their are two ways the could have emulated the shaky live cameraman actions. Either as above with mechanical programmed jig or electronically as the image was processed and aired, thus 1 sec delay caused by digital encoding.

  Simples x

• 19 Digger // Sep 12, 2009 at 1:46 pm

  I think I know how this trick was done. Firstly, you never saw Darren Brown’s numbered balls as he put them into the tube.

  Then Darren rushed to the studio, unaccompanied by a TV crew. Then the next time you saw him he was in front of a TV, saying the National Lottery will be picked in a few moments. The balls for his selections were already on show and facing away.

  In fact the lottery draw had already taken place before the camera went on him, in a supposed TV studio. Then all Darren had to do is to convince everyone he was predicting the winning lottery numbers.

  If you watch a TV programme called Magic’s Greatest Secrets Finally Revealed, they show you something very similar, and tell you that the TV crews are always in on the trick.

• 20 Doozy // Sep 13, 2009 at 4:19 am

  Digger, the flaw in your conclusion is the fact that the draw WAS live and genuine as carried out by Camelot on BBC1. This is not in any doubt. I know foreign posters outside the UK might doubt this as they didn’t witness the actual timing but I can assure you the draw was a real live mid-week Lotto draw.

• 21 Eugene // Sep 13, 2009 at 9:35 am

  The thing to remember firstly, is that Derren Brown CANNOT pick winning Lottery numbers. If he could, he would not be a television personality. He would be living in the south of France, owning a myriad of global corporations, a fleet of Rolls Royces, and with a personal turnover equalling the national debt of Bolivia.

• 22 paul nelson // Sep 13, 2009 at 1:29 pm

  I have to laugh when people post their carefully thought out observations, and what they no doubt think is their painstaking attention to detail, when in fact they have failed to even spot that the guys name is DERREN, not DARREN.

• 23 Digger // Sep 13, 2009 at 2:26 pm

  This Act of Darren Browns, just an Illusion. Every one saw Darren watch the TV screen as the Random Numbers came out. Just as every one else across the land did at the same time. But it Only takes a 10 second delay for the TV picture to get from A-B.

  If one listens to a show on a PC, and has a radio on in the same room broadcasting that same show, you will clearly hear the delay. It’s the same for TV. But was it the real lottery draw or had it already taken place. Darren got the numbers, then the draw was running 10 to 15 seconds late when we all saw this amazing act.

• 24 Luke // Sep 17, 2009 at 6:32 pm

  Digger - There WAS a 1-2 second delay, not sure these people can make it any clearer.

  Nice ideas guys! I’m pretty sure it was a spit screen piece of magic. Wait for the camera to stop moving before the draw, freeze the left side, assistant writes on the balls… unfreeze the left side. Derrens free to walk back to the now unfrozen left side and reveal the balls. He’s an illusionist… I think it’s a great trick… Everyones talking about it, job done

• 25 Rory // Sep 18, 2009 at 4:22 pm

  Ok, how about this: let’s just for a moment forget this stunt - or any of the other more complex and difficult to explain tricks - and focus on something a little more simple. Like…

  Can one person out of all those who think they know how he does his stuff explain how he knew what time the watch was turned to, and what number was on the dice in the Enigma live show?

  If someone can explain that simple trick then I’ll definitely be ready to listen to explanations of the more complex stuff…

• 26 Doozy // Sep 18, 2009 at 4:45 pm

  Digger there was no 10sec delay! It was a great illusion, and used more sophisticated methods than you are implying.

  And of course Derren Brown can not read minds or predict Lotto numbers, he’s just a master of his art.

• 27 jo // Oct 14, 2009 at 12:22 pm

  Hi Rory,

  I saw Enigma live and, although I’m a little shaky on the dice trick, I think I can explain the watch. We know that Derren has unusual, learned abilities from other programmes he has done and books he has written. His memory skills would be considered phenomenal by most, but can be learnt - I’ve learnt some myself!

  Derren’s skill lies in layering hot and cold reading skills, with sleight of hand, magic tricks, memory techniques, misdirection, mechanics and influencing skills in such a way that an untrained person can’t see the lines between. His tricks themselves are often very simple if you can spot the different techniques.

  We were seated very near the front at Enigma and I could hear the watch turning from my seat. I suspect that he knows how far the hands turn per turn and uses his influencing skills to direct when the person winding the watch should change direction. He then listened to the number of turns in each direction and did the maths, which is pretty easy for him.

  The dice, I’m not sure. But It’s never as complex as you think. Also, when you sit down to watch the theatre shows, do remember that he has the credit card details for at least a quarter of the audience, but probably closer to half. What comes up when you google your name..?

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