According to the Mirror – It could be a load of old balls, but illusionist Derren Brown reckons he’ll predict the Lottery numbers live on TV just minutes before the draw. In a 10-minute Channel 4 special on Wednesday, broadcast at the same time as BBC1′s National Lottery Live draw, Brown will try to PICK the six numbers correctly.
The mind-bending performer promises to reveal his technique to viewers in an hour-long follow-up programme on Friday. Brown, 38, admits: If this one goes wrong, it could be a career-breaker. Wednesday nights jackpot stands at £2.4million, but C4 bosses have banned Brown from buying a ticket. (But not ME – tee hee – PD)
Last night he told the Mirror: I realise there are a lot of questions this brings up and I hope they will be answered on the Friday night follow-up show. For now, Im really excited and really nervous.
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hahaha!!! I love the idea, and I love this teaser – WONDERFUL!
Talk about ambitious!
Wow, good luck, I can’t wait to see now!
Sorry to be the pedant but you need a better proofreader: Derren Brown reckons hell predict the Lottery numbers?
- there’s a few more too if you look at the original article. Jounalists! – PD
That’d be mad if it works…fingers crossed
Great ad!
Hell yeah, I read that rumour last night and thought “there’s noooo way!”
This is going to be genius
So are we all going to win the lotto like in Bruce Almighty and everyone gets like a £ ?!
Evan
Exciting!
Now I can tick off the lamppost of the list
Oh and the best thing abou this article is probably the “C4 banned him from buying a ticket”. Haha!
This is going to have me shouting at my TV and hitting the couch with tension… I know it!
Excellent! He’s such a show off! I was going to say something about Derren’s balls, but I’ll behave…
Brilliant!
In “The System” he covered all bases by ensuring there was always a winner. I hope he hasn’t just bought hundreds of thousands of tickets, covering all possibilities of combinations. He’ll be skint!
I know of one way to predict the numbers a few minutes before they appear on screen, but I don’t know of one that allows enough time to buy a ticket with the numbers on. And I only know that method because it was on both Jonathan Creek and The Real Hustle.
Can he not tell us the numbers in advance so we can enter?
I wonder if the first episode is the “win” episode… or if it’s “trick” or “fool”…
LOL I like the way Camelot think this is nothing unusual – “Seventy per cent of the adult population will be trying to predict the six lucky numbers for Wednesday nights Lotto draw”. Yep but only one of those 70% are doing it on live telly… and is Derren Brown!!
now why can’t i juggle balls like that!!!
BTW Phillis… if ure feeling generous… i have loads of bills to pay!!!!!!
Are you juggling the winning numbers already?
I took what I thought was your hint last week and on Friday I went out and bought my ticket for this coming Wednesday’s draw. 5 numbers were clear and one I wasn’t so sure about. Let’s hope I was receiving correctly.
It is going to be me (and a few more of your followers too no doubt).
Of course, you could tell us all what the numbers are at 6:30pm on Wednesday AND make sure we were stuck to our sofas so we couldn’t go out and buy a last minute ticket – that would make great TV!
Erm… If you manage to pull this off won’t it put the while National Lottery system under scrutiny? I say “if”, however I don’t doubt you will.
That’s not good enough Brown … you will have to tell me where, when and from who I need to buy a lottery ticket here in Holland for the Staatsloterij … jackpot is now 27,5 mil .. quite nice. Anyhow .. as soon as you can do that … fullfill my simple request .. I’ll be impressed .. (not that that was the main goal here …. ofcourse ..).
Yes, my system is … I buy a ticket (or more) … still the best chances to winn a lottery .. otherwise you’d be filthy rich … enormously filthy … leasuring around . painting a bit .. only stuff for fun .. and at your time only …
The balls .. that’s good .. but still with the right hand huh? So the motor skills in your right hand are still better than in the left hand huh? (and no .. i’m not left handed …darn .. )
i hope it’ll be here too
Is there a longer broadcasting delay on BBC1/The Lottery than there is on C4 so you can see the draw happening before the rest of us do?
Think i may have to buy a ticket just to support derren
good luck phillis – naughy naughty 
How on earth is this possible, lets chew this one over… it’s impossible to predict, we know that. C4 banned him from buying a ticket? Nice PR, but rubbish. But the lottery ticket purchasing cut off is 7:30pm or something, right? So the BBC’s ‘live’ broadcast of the lottery numbers selection must be delayed – probably by no more than minutes, or seconds even. Their delay might purely be technical, the time sending vid to shetlands before broadcast nationally… or whatever, no idea. Or maybe it’s standard BBC practice to buffer live shows by a minute, not sure. Lottery HQ is in fact just another studio, Brown needs a peek in there, radio link? mobile phone? telescope?? and then broadcast his ‘predictions’ before the BBC’s broadcast delay?
O’right. I bet he hasn’t done anything else at home at last couple of months then been throwing those balls. That needs practising!
What comes to lottery prediction – I’m whit Fiona: “there’s noooo way”
BUT: There’s always this “even the simplest tricks can make the most secured systems vulnerable – if you know where to look” so there is some aces in his sleaves. Gotta be.
A courier braker yes, if it doesn’t work, but how is a prison involved with this? Is he going to hack his way to the lottomachine? Or even better are YOU, Phillis and Abeo, going to hack your way into the lottomachine for him?!
Oh, well. What ever the trick might be, I’m going to be stuck to my sofa at wednesday anyway.
Ow, it’s a trick .. the balls go backward.!!! I saw that Brown … you can not fool me …
How you predict the lottery numbers … in reality you get on air after they broadcast the winning numbers …. so the two programs get swopped … after prediction … .. Not that it would have mattered .. people can’t buy tickets anymore .. and the numbers are already known .. so someone probably whispered them into your ear .. without them even knowing theirselves …
That will indeed be a career breaker .. as with that load of money .. who needs to work for his money by then anymore huh? Ehehehe …. You’d probably buy/develop a whole new network on tv … and start mind controlling the nation … europe .. the world …. the universe …
Oh well … we can get bbc here too, but not bbc1
as far as i know there can be a buffer upto 15 mintues before it cant be called live tv anymore. very much doubt he is going to be relying on that tho, wouldnt make much of a follow up on friday.
ok, this looks good, i doubt it will turn out to be something we can do, but i’m interested into how the hell your getting away with this. well, i’m looking forward to it.
Whoa check the juggling out! That’s damn impressive <@:)
Can't wait for Friday yay !
oooh how exciting! I will be getting a ticket!
>wouldnt make much of a follow up on friday.
Not sure about that, as always with these things the reveal is always a slightly disappointing ‘doh, that’s simple.’ but I think this might be interesting. if we’re right about the broadcast delays, he’s still somehow got to get a peek at the numbers + broadcast it before the BBC. A race against time + he can big up the trespassing on lottery HQ part of it. Which all adds up to exciting tv… could he get caught at any minute, will he make it in time etc. etc. ( when actually, he might well have full backing from camelot, as any pr is good pr)
It doesn’t matter if he gets the right numbers, only that people think he gets the right numbers….. but good luck Phillis anyway
You go Phillis!
Of course it’s a trick and of course it’s not possible to predict the ‘Lottery’ (clue’s in the name really!!!)… But I’m sure it will be a very clever one. And if the balls could really be predicted, then why not predict them now, to let us all buy tickets and really crash the system? Come on Derren
> oooh how exciting! I will be getting a ticket!
Ha! See it’s working already! Camelot must be, secretly, part of the stunt, if only to authorise him a view of the live draw.
Hahaha! We knew it! I’m so happy that we (Derren’s blog viewers) managed to decipher some clues from his trailer and figure out (sort of) what he’s doing XD
He’ll be predicting the numbers LIVE?!?! Dang… There was I thinking those numbers on the lampost were the ones we should all go out and buy.
Am I to understand that if we pick those numbers we might as well flush our ticket down the toilet now?
Yes alright… I’m suspending my previous cynicism.
I’m guessing that Derren’s not going to predict these numbers like he did in “The System” or is he?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgfB6M1CRr4
Well, I suppose it has something to do with reversed video footage…I’m guessing that there is more to all those backwards adverts than simply doing it for fun.
ya mad ed ! ya drive me bonkers lol , does it involve predicting 14 000 000 tickets cos other than that i have no idea how ya would do that, well unless the lotto was all a fix anyway and your new bird is in charge of it lol, ant way good luck with that i am sure it will be mad
Using the live broadcast delay seems the likely way to do it.
I don’t watch the lottery but I think there’s a studio audience on Wednesday, isn’t there? If so, Derren needs an assistant or two in that audience to quickly relay the numbers to his team at Channel 4 – via radio, mobile or WiFi. These can then be fed to Derren via an earpiece or autocue.
Channel 4 not allowing Derren to buy a ticket is probably marking propaganda.
Sounds interesting though – good luck Derren!
@colinrocks: I think the first episode is ‘to trick’, the second (about stucktomysofa) is ‘to control’, the third (about security systems and the CIA) is ‘to fool’ and the last (about the casino scam) is ‘to win’.
I don’t think it’ll be a XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX——ALL SPOILERS OR REVEALS RIGHT OR WRONG ARE REMOVED PLEASE ALLOW PEOPLE TO ENJOY THE SHOW —–XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX numbers in his box.
“C4 banned him from buying a ticket”
That just says, that they think it’s possible to rig the lottery. Which is a worry on it’s own.
Can’t wait – but hope it’s something more than broadcasting delays (a variation – there is a small delay between analogue and digitial transmission – might be enough?)
And no-one’s commented on PICK…
I have a feeling Derren rigged up his own Lottery machine and over the course of a year, he has just been watching it over and over and has somehow learned how to tell which balls will drop. I am probably completely wrong though.
Nice dropping his age in there… lol
Then again that does give 36 possible predictions on 6 lines…. hmmmm. lol
How about he buys 6 tickets and one number on each, in order across them, matches the draw.
That’s timed, dated and validated evidance of the prediction, but worth not a single English penny.
Cheers
Rob
Pick me? Please
Wait, it says he’ll be predicting them “minutes before the draw”. There goes my theory. I really hope it isn’t anything to do with a delay, that would be very disappointing. I doubt it will be.
Garrggh!
Is there a media player or someone online way of viewing this if you’re in the US???
ARRRRGGH!
Help!
I have a friend who did a similar trick a couple years back, his was done with a time delay which he had rigged up. I imagine that is how he will do it… though i recon it will be more advanced than what my mate did.
Though i guessing if it was a broadcast delay trick then the guys monitoring this wouldnt publisise peoples theories… I reckon this is going to be a blinder of a trick.
If he can pull it off of course
He’s learned how to time travel then? Far more interesting than the lottery. Can I have a go on the magic carpet into the future and back again? Actually, I’ll let you test it out first… I’m a bit scared bits of me go missing. ell, any more bits that haven’t fallen off or disintegrated already!
Didn’t they do the time-delay thing on The Real Hustle once? I’m sure Derren’s much cleverer than that(although he is a bit of a sexy swindler). ahahaha
“And no-one’s commented on PICK…”
**sigh** I wasted the best part of this morning trying to work out if that meant anything.
And then taking it in conjunction with another post that I’d decided, for some unapparent reason, held some significance went trawling round the blog looking for hidden links.
I really should go do something else now :p
I KNEW a lot of stuff would be posted today as soon as I’m back at work (with no internet access….there’s only so much you can look at with a phone!)
But brilliant, just love the new ad! And, well, I shan’t say anymore than if it comes off I shall be probably as dumbstruck as everyone else…..
Can’t wait!!
Good luck!
LC x
Good luck to him….tbh we should all stop trying to guess as it will jsut ruin it, sit back and enjoy like with everything else thsi great entertainer performers….
Ps are you sure you do not want to give us a heads up on them there numbers.
,
PPS Pick me please lol
This time it´s too easy to know the answer well before Friday´s program:
he will either:
-exploit a delay in time,however small it can be,between the actual draw taking place and the “live” broadcast on BBC. Someone witnessing the real draw will tell him the numbers as soon as they come out of the pots.
-or he will look closely at the pots and be able to see the correct number just seconds before the balls come out.(much less spectacular in this case).
Derren you are a very good illusionist and sometimes I had to wait your revealing shows before understanding,but this time I don´t think I´ll be very surprised by this trick.
Just wanted to say OMG LOOK AT THE JUGGLING in another comments thread too, because I <3 juggling
Sam:
“-or he will look closely at the pots and be able to see the correct number just seconds before the balls come out.(much less spectacular in this case).”
LOL. Do you think for his next TV special he will pull a coin out from behind someone’s ear?
i know what <3 means… ahhhh ♡
I mean, NOW I know what it means. Dunno what happened to the first word. Maybe I just thunk it n didn’t type it.
In reference to my moderated post at 11:53, I wasn’t trying to spoil anything, just posting an idea on how it could be done. I certainly don’t believe Derren will do it the way I proposed, he’s a lot cleverer than I. Love his shows, and certainly wouldn’t want to ruin it for anyone.
PS, I trust they’re kisses from the moderator
Why has Jimmer post been moderated and mine not?
This means Derren will not predict the 6 numbers,but probably give some kind of system already prepared leaving the spectators to pick maybe 1 or more numbers by themselves.
@DerrenBrown I’m gonna go with an early cynical view – the lottery results show being up to 1 minute delayed as it’s live, mole in audience?
Either JimmerUK was very right in his guess at 11:53, or edited the “spoilers will be removed” in himself (my theory) as this comments form spews the same theory multiple times now i’ve had a read
Sorry but what is the point in revealing how the trick is done on Friday?
Is Derren claiming he has some particular powers or not?
Or does he say he´s just a common person with ability to study tricks to illude and entertain people?
In this latter case(which seems as he agrees to reveal his methods),then it´s difficult to explain the need for walking backwards and all those sort of things.
@Ian B and @Sam – No, he was just talking about a general technique other magicians could use, and we don’t post any spoliers like that which could ruin other magicians tricks.
@JimmerUK – Yes, big sloppy kisses from Phillis and me
Although the timelag thing seems feasible, I thoroughly doubt this will be used, simply because it hasnt been moderated out on any of the posts. Unless the moderators are getting sloppy?
Abeo & Phillis 
i see the word misdirection is used i have a feeling there may be a little bit more to this than meets the eye
@reply me on twitter username: JRabone
Can I see it on the internet somewhere??
…..WTF
…Predict the lottery…?
…NO!…… just… NO.
Sounds like it’s going to be good show…but has this not been done before by Copperfield in 2001? The link below looks like it was over in Germany.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/oct/15/johnhooper
Cheers
Rob
That’s what I thought, jameshogg: “NO, DERREN! JUST…..NO!”
It’s going to be one of those nail-biting T.V. history moments…Will Derren Brown be beaten on live T.V? (And I mean mentally beaten, not physically beaten. That shouldn’t happen so long as they don’t let the Creationists in.)
Oceans of luck to you, Derren! Damn, I’m getting nervous now!
copperfield did the reveal an hour after? the numbers need to be announced before the balls fall otherwise its not a prediction, just a trick. similiar to the united ‘prediction’, which i have seen no substantial proof that the picture was up before hand. or that the numbers werent chopped in afterwards, as the picture seems to display a pre kick off crowd mulling around. hmmmmmm potatoes.
ive got a proper comfy sofa, so looking forward to see whats going to happen and all the other events.
All they do is put up a vt of Derren playing with his balls and everyone goes crazy!
CANNOT wait until Wednesday. Good luck.
x
C4 banned him from buying A ticket not from buying oh let’s say twenty tickets
. Seriously tho if you win Phillis please don’t let it change you. I would hate to see you in Hello with twenty boy toys but seeing you in D&G would be nice.
reading out aloud the numbers before the draw , that will be something to watch. I hope its not a prediction handed to someone else
This can be simply amazing. I’m from Italy but I hope I’ll be able to watch it in some way.
i hope he’s not going to say he’s going to write down a number before each ball and keep it secret. So he writes down a random number before the first ball, and then the first ball drops out. He then writes this number down on a second piece of paper and so on, writing the number of the sixth ball on the seventh piece of paper. his job would be made easier if the first number he wrote down actually came out as the sixth ball. Of course he won’t do that trick as my sister played that trick on me when i was about 5 and she was 9.
i love the way derren brown uses his observations to create SYSTEMS.
I believe that the lottery is yet another system that no one has yet observed.
i really regret not meeting him when he came to my little town of colne.
this man is a genius and i hope this brings him greater success.
good luck derren!
[...] in Discussion, Psychology. trackback Derren Brown returns to our screens for a series of events in the first of which he claims he will predict the lottery numbers of Wednesdays draw correctly [...]
It’s odd to hang a whole show on one trick like this. It has got to be really good. Part of why a magic show works is that you may spot how one trick is done or see partly how a few tricks are done but more tricks keep coming and you are still overwhelmed by the cleverness of it all. With one trick it needs to be dumbfoundingly cleaver.
Umm…. what’s with PICK and LOT in one of the previous items?! Am I just being hyper-suspicious now? Any ideas?
x
Predicting the future mmm… i dont think so Derren …youre obviously going to be up to some jiggerry pokerry as usual …but for entertainment purposes it should be brilliant … i can’t wait
No matter what happens I you will always have my infinite respect….and not in a gay way either.
See now, C4 should let you buy a ticket on the understanding that you’ll give them the cash, they are in trouble anyway without Big Brother to fill air time, I’m sure they could do with a cash injection…
Know your balls Derren , Check em out from lumps or irregular shapes
Well, I reckon that the lottery is drawn much earlier than 10:35. I don’t mean a few minutes, I mean much earlier. I am not suggesting that this is done unfairly, just that when we see the balls being randomly selected, they are not. I believe that the numbers are fairly selected behind closed doors maybe an hour earlier, but they are now being selected purely for the theatre of a live TV show.
Maybe DB has discovered a way to tap into this…
All I can say is put numbers 04 and 40 on…
If the numbers are announced minutes before Camelot announce them then one way of doing it is bya small loop hole:
1. The Camelot show although live will still be under some kind of time delay, like live radio has. This delay could be enough time for somebody in the Camelot audience to contact the Channel 4 studio and relay these numbers back to Derren.
2. Channel 4 remove this live delay. So they appear to be broadcasting slightly before Camelot, even though they are in fact broadcasting after Camelot are.
Voila, you have the numbers appearing to be predicted and live.
he hasrecorded himself saying all the possible outcomes, these are loaded into a system, as the numbers pop out (in real life) the numbers are entered into the system as they come out, the system filters down the video’s as they come out. Once the 5th ball has dropped there will be 42 available video’s of him saying the correct 5 ball sequence. This will then be aired before the 6th ball drops (also beating the BBC delay) so we get the illusion of it being broadcast before the draw. The 6th ball will be scuffed, or there’s a one in 42 chance it could be right.
Sounds good Dan. But, if they are using the delay tactic, then once he knows the numbers, why does he need to rely on a pre-recorded video, why not just recite them verbally?
look in the dictionary for the definition of predict, it means to foretell, to tell the result BEFORE the result is known, I doubt thats whats going to happen, Im so sure it waill be writing down the number ect and then revealing AFTER the result
The draw is made at 8pm. (I think) Events in the past when it has to move. Euro 96 (one draw took place at 9:30pm), Eurovision Song Contest (It has to start at 8pm BST time, 9pm CET), Guinevere broke down (no ones fault, draw was started at around 9pm), Diana, Princess of Wales Death and the World Cup France 98. The latest it has been drawn is 9:30pm. He is only saying that he will predict the results announcement. There is plenty of time to receive the results from lottery HQ before results announcement.
Will be watching with great interest anyway!
Thats what i don’t get, the draw is never going to be that late, so it’s not predicting atall as he can just get told the draw
I’m not saying this is it but…..
So the advert was a rather cool video of Derren juggling in on had qiuite rapidly the lottery balls explaining that he’s going to predict the numbers right. So his recent adverts have been littered with clues to his upcoming project right? The juggling advert was a split of someone juggling in one hand and the Derren pasted over the top. Perhaps this was a little clue that the live feed was going to be split (The left from the right) and the numbers replaced before he went and turned around the stand.
I hope it wasn’t and he did work out a system as this would be more interesting than “smoke and mirrors”
On Derren’s into to the Events video he is sitting in front of a screen with an unnecessary split in it. The split screen is immediately behind his right arm – the same arm he juggled the lottery balls without looking at them in the ad.
Now, he is an extremely accomplished magician who has demonstrated an obsessive level of expertise in card manipulation, but I have seen Cirque Du Soleil jugglers at work on a nightly basis and even they need to watch what they are doing…
The podium with the lottery balls was to his right.
What a crooked moderator ! Why was my original post deleted, becauase I guaranteed that he would not be saying the numbers first and then the result would be shown after, thats what the word predict means. Heres a guess how it was done.
The balls are made of heat material, the same material that certain printer paper is made from, when it contacts heat then it goes black.
On the stand there is a dot matrix of heat emitters, and they can easily be programmed so once a number is known then the heat emitters print the number onto each ball. With todays technology theres hundreds of ways it can be done. Whatever way it was done, the fact remains that the balls were manipulated only after the result was know, anyone who beleives otherwise is completely deluded, as its impossible.
Msg from Abeo: I don’t appriciate being called crooked, It was deleted not due to it’s content, but the tone of voice it was written in (similar to how you started this post).
I think I may know how this was done… Split Screen
Split screen, vertically between Darren with the TV on the right, and the “prediction” balls on the left.
When Darren is looking at the TV making a note of the numbers, the left half of the screen is frozen.(freeze frame).
This allows an assistant to load the ball holder, unseen, with the correctly numbered balls.
Assistant then quickly leaves.
As Darren moves back towards the “prediction” balls, the left half of the screen is un-frozen.
This allows Darren to reveal balls that were placed there by the assistant.
Job Done… but it looked good, and was entertaining.
Now if Darren had predicted the numbers 15 seconds before the draw was made, then that would be Brilliant!!!
I really don’t think it would take Derren or anyone else a year to come up with that one…! It’s gotta be something that takes an hour to explain on friday! lol
We need to remember that you CANNOT predict the lottery/future.
I very much doubt it involves split-screen, mirrors or ‘magic-balls’
I think the big pointer is when Derren writes the numbers on the piece of card, it is entirely unnecessary and is simply buying time…the numbers could be put on the screen just as the BBC do with the Aston graphics.
So, he buys time – draws our eyes to the card, at which point I believe that someone swaps the balls…its still damned slick though!
I’m with the split-screeners, and I think I know when you can see it change…
The wobbly camera would make it virtually impossible to pull a split screen stunt however there are around 2 seconds as Derren reads out the numbers in numerical order where the screen is totally still – as if the camera has been placed on a stand. Check it out. It’s as he reads out the numbers in the 20′s. Once you see it, it stands out like a sore thumb.
Tonight’s show I hope he’ll explain all that but pull something out of the hat that will have us all scratching our heads – like the numbers being on plain view somewhere in advance of the Lotto draw – in the trailer or in the show itself. A great trick if he can do it and one that we may never find out the answer to….
Shouldnt Derren be recieving some kind of mention in the Guiness book of records for doing the largest most televised prediction trick ever ?