Derren Brown's Lottery

I enjoyed Derren Brown's explanation on how the lottery was "predicted" last night. The wisdom of groups thing and especially the automatic writing thing are pure bunkum.

For the group of 24 predicters - did none of them question why at the main draw, and for the first time, it was Derren who did the maths and not someone from their group? So yes - I beleive the group of predictors were lied to.

This is my take:

• We know Derren spoke to Camelot for their agreement to do the stunt - I reckon they agreed to collude with him.
• I don't think there is anything which says the draw has to come from the machine shown live. In fact - when the programme over-runs or is short some draws are made in advance and simply put up on the screen.
• So the draw is run in advance of the TV show following the legal requirements and with the observers. This draw result is passed to Derren after he can buy a ticket, but before the live show.
• The weighted balls are put into the machine and the machine is used simply to publish the draw result of earlier.
• BBC has a legal right to publish the lotery results first. So Derren has to stay quiet (as he said he did). I never bought that a prediction cannot be published in advance, but if Derren knows the draw result he cannot legally publish it himself ahead of the BBC show.

So the clues are all there. The lottery draw isn't rigged, but the live machine is. All stays within the law and Derren does say how it was done in the Friday show.

So what's in it for Camelot? A lot of advertising. I'm willing to bet that lottery sales are up this week and they certainly advertised heavily during Derren's explanation show last night.