[Q] Should I play lottery numbers that have a higher frequency of being drawn?
[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.
Just when you need reality to back up your facts. I thank you Bulgaria
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!
OK, this should be the last post about how Derren Brown’s lottery trick was done!
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]
Derren sadly disappointed on this one – his ‘How To Win The Lottery’ show actually failed to deliver on the fundamental promise made earlier in the week.
He entertained as usual – the guy is a great showman – but he didn’t actually tell us how the trick was done. All was NOT revealed. Which is fine. Except that is exactly what we were promised!
He did of course misdirect and entertain, which is the nature and fun of the show.
Derren tells a small group of people they can predict lottery numbers, and they become genuinely impressed at being ‘one out’. Being one out is also known as being wrong of course. Nobody wins a prize for nearly matching a number! (But even letting them get ‘close’ is pure Derren at work of course)
The important facts to remember are:-
Derren is not a psychic or mystic (he actually debunks people who claim to be!)
Derren cannot predict lottery results, it’s simply not possible.
It’s a trick, that’s what he does.
Derren ended the show as ‘whatever you choose to believe is up to you’, but we were cheated on the promise of him giving us the real answer. And that was an unusually flat and diasappointing ending to the illusion.
There was no ‘reveal’ and then further twist to leave us confounded and impressed.
Instead we’re simply left with the reality of ‘oh, so it was just a cheap camera trick then’.
Shame.
[P.S. If you want to know more about how Derren does his crazy mind voodoo check out this video]
[Q] Should I play lottery numbers that have a higher frequency of being drawn?
Just when you need reality to back up your facts. I thank you Bulgaria 
OK, this should be the last post about how Derren Brown’s lottery trick was done!
Derren sadly disappointed on this one – his ‘How To Win The Lottery’ show actually failed to deliver on the fundamental promise made earlier in the week.
On Wednesday night Derren Brown predicted all 6 of the UK Lotto numbers live on TV.
