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 dodgy lottery systems!
Bulgarian Lottery Same Numbers
On 6th September 2009 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 repeat numbers were drawn again!
The same 6 numbers two draws in a row…
Eeeek! Impossible craziness right? How can the same numbers be drawn on the lottery?
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 behaving randomly.
You can read more about just this kind of thing in have the lottery numbers ever repeated.
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 learn 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 that does not necessarily mean those patterns are useful. Random can (and does) look weird and non-random sometimes. That’s normal. This means that whilst analyzing past results may provide an ‘edge’ there is no proof that it can magically predict the winning lottery numbers – no matter how good at math you are, or how big your spreadsheet is.
(If you enjoy analyzing 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 lottery commission concluded their investigation and found no evidence of fraud or manipulation, and no wrongdoing. Surprise!
Repeat Numbers in Hong Kong
Update 22/09/2024: Hong Kong’s Mark Six just repeated 5 main numbers out of six, in a consecutive draw.
On the 17th September the result was 5, 18, 21, 24, 27, 44. Then in the next draw on the 19th September the result was 5, 18, 21, 24, 44, 47.
My god the odds of that happening on consecutive weeks is absolutely astronomical! Tens of trillions to one!
No. They are just as likely to hit again a third, fourth , fifth, etc, etc, etc time in a row. Every single set of numbers is always, always, always just as likely to come up every single time, no matter what the previous set was. Always. Period.
I play the Lotto with the hope of becoming rich!
The time I spend in analyzing is a Brain Exercise that I love.
I do not like a machine to draw the numbers because sometimes machines have brains. Six Persons from the Public could manually draw a ball each while their head is turned completely on the other side.
If you enjoy analysing results, that’s fine – a lot of people do. It doesn’t hurt your chances (but may not be improving them either, so do it mainly for the fun).
The draw machines are tested and audited to be ‘random’. If you introduced humans into the draw, then people would really would start complaining the draw could be manipulated 🙂
Hi LG,
From memory this happened 3 or 4 years ago back here in Queensland (Australia). The same person won 1st price in 2 consecutive Saturday drawings. Mind boggling scenario.
Followed the story, and all I can say is WOW!?! What wasn’t disclosed was whether or not the numbers were drawn in the exact order, because that’s even more amazing. If the numbers came in as 4-15-23-24-35-42 & the next time it’s 35-15-23-4-24-42 that’s not the exact same order, but it is the exact same numbers. What was weird about this whole thing is the next drawing pulled up three more of the same numbers. What are the odds?!?
What are the numbers available in the Bulgaria lottery, i.e. Mega Millions has 1 to 70 main and 1 to 25 supplemental?
It would have been more spectacular if the balls with the same number had been chosen in the same sequence. Listing the numbers of both draws in numerical order keeps us from knowing.