11:33am UK, Saturday September 12, 2009
Derren Brown has revealed how he apparently predicted Wednesday's National Lottery numbers - he combined the random guesses of members of the public.
Brown claimed he predicted the lottery numbers (Picture: Channel 4)
The illusionist performed his latest trick during the midweek Lotto draw and it sparked several theories online about how he did it.
In a secret studio location on Wednesday, Brown told viewers he had written his predictions on a line of balls, which he then revealed after watching the draw live on BBC1.
He said "that's a year of my life right there. I can't believe it", as he turned over the balls to reveal they were an exact match for the winning numbers: 2, 11, 23, 28, 35, 39.
Online theories included a split screen, the numbers being projected onto the balls, and a false wall.
Now he has said how he apparently did it, telling viewers that he used "a powerful beautiful secret that can only be achieved when we all put our heads together".
Brown's trick sparked online theories
He claimed it was based on the Wisdom of Crowds theory, which tells how a crowd of people at a country fair accurately estimated the weight of an ox when their guesses were all averaged out.
Brown put together a panel of 24 people who wrote down their predictions after studying the last year's worth of numbers.
Then they added up all the guesses for each ball and divided it by 24 to get the average guess.
On the first go they only got one number right, on the second attempt they managed three and on the third they guessed four.
By the time of last week's draw they had honed their technique to get six correct guesses.
But Brown still left his audience guessing after stressing he did not, and would never, fix the lottery machine before giving precise details of how - using weighted balls - he could have achieved that.
Brown said he could have bribed a lottery insider, put weighted balls in the machine and hypnotised the security man who guards it.
He then stressed he did not, and would never, do this, as it would be illegal.
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