English illusionist/mentalist/wizard Derren Brown had prepared for this moment for over a year, and on Wednesday night, he showed off his latest trick – correctly predicting Wednesday night’s UK lottery numbers!
Broadcasting from a secret location, Brown had written his predictions down on a line of ball, but for legal reasons could not show them before BBC One’s live National Lottery draw. Moments after the draw, Brown revealed his predictions, which were an exact match for the winning numbers, making him the first person ever to successfully predict the national lottery numbers live on air! See the video below or watch it in high quality at YouTube.
Since the video aired, various theories have been flying around the internet including:
- Receiving insider information
- Projecting the numbers onto blank balls
- Switching the numbers
- Mass hypnosis
- Time travel
- Camera tricks
YouTube user mutatedmonty posted a clip of his solution. Check it out.
In another programme tonight, Brown will talk through a number of ways he might have pulled off the trick. In the meantime discuss the theories at the Derren Brown Lottery Predictionblog.
UPDATE: The BBC reports that Brown claims he asked asked 24 people to guess the Lotto numbers and then used an average to make his prediction. A professor of pure mathematics at the University of Oxford called shenanigans, saying “Mathematically it is complete rubbish. It is a bluff on his part”. Others claim split screen trickery was used.
[via PS3ZA member PsyMonkey