Derren Brown Events (How to win the National Lottery)

[DrVenkman]

Ha ha ha amazing. Well done Derren.

[barthez]

If i ever see the bloke i'll rip off his ears after watching that!!!!!

[cjanderson]

Originally Posted by LastoftheFraggles

No I think that coin thing is genuine. It only works on a continuous sequence I think though, not standalone sets of tosses as DB seemed to be doing.

yep, thats sort of what i thought - if you have to get THH rather than HHH, and you toss 10 times, there may be some benefit if the 3 you want can be anywhere in the 10. but not 100% sure on that one.

[zenza]

Originally Posted by thescrounger

Just the simple fact that it's impossible to predict the lottery numbers.

Or least all of them, I managed 3 once.

It must be possible as there have been some big winners in the past.

[MetalGearAl]

Originally Posted by Jimmyboy

I don't know. HHH requires you to get the exact same answer 3 times in a row where as THH accounts for the probability that that will rarely happen, which 'may' give it a slight statistical advantage.

He didn't say how he was doing it, but yeah I think that system works only if they were continuously doing the sequence. What happens if they'd flicked HHHH? Is that 2 counts for HHH or just one and the start of another?

I didn't think that bit was nonsense, probability maths is a tricky *******.

Don't get me wrong btw, I did enjoy some of tonight's show and I don't regret watching it, and I'm looking forward to Derren's other shows in the series. I just found it all a bit disappointing because I didn't believe most of it.

[AdamBrunt]

Originally Posted by LastoftheFraggles

No I think that coin thing is genuine. It only works on a continuous sequence I think though, not standalone sets of tosses as DB seemed to be doing.

I don't think he explained the rules very well for that bit - were they taking it in turns to toss 3 coins in sequence and had to get their choice in those 3, or was it just taking it turns and you get a point if your choice appears as the most recent 3 results ?

As the 'pyschic writing' stuff; if you believe that I've got a bridge you can buy It also goes completely against the theory of "wisdom of the crowd" as it relies on ONE person's interpration of what everyone else has written (first time it was Kyle - or whatever his name was - 2nd time it was DB).

If it was done ala Pepper's Ghost ... I am assuming the 'ghost' was the winning sequence of numbers revealed at the end rather than 6 clean balls which were hidden at the end ?

[Yetiboy]

Originally Posted by cjanderson

(i assume that HHH versus THH thing was also crap - not the crowd cheering thing which was of course rubbish, but any maths behind the HHH thing?)

obviously if i just toss a coin three times (and only three times) in a right now HHH has as much chance as THH (and as any other combination).

however in a long continuous string of flips it is impossible to get HHH without getting THH first.

[B0zza]

Originally Posted by cjanderson

(i assume that HHH versus THH thing was also crap - not the crowd cheering thing which was of course rubbish, but any maths behind the HHH thing?)

Nope - Penney's game - 40 year old maths...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penney%27s_game

[Sneeka]

Originally Posted by zenza

It must be possible as there have been some big winners in the past.

A prediction is made with certitude, a guess isn't.

[Richie]

Originally Posted by johnrevill

Why has the assumption been made that it was a camera trick - have I missed something?

Also Occam's Razor - the simplest explanation is more likely to be accurate than more complicated explanations.
What's easier to believe and achieve, a camera trick in a studio you can control completely (the skill is in doing it live across multiple channels and still not getting caught out during the actual process) or the complex guff he fed us for an hour (however entertainingly it was done).
I am biased though because Mr B makes me wet.

[stephen]

I wonder what the chances of someone winning the lottery using this system are? I know it's total rubbish, but say you get 200,000 groups trying it, with odds of 1:14,000,000 it could easily happen in a few years.

[Gobias]

Well it is all interesting despite it being a poor show tonight. Watching this video you can see the ball on the left (the highest number) appears to rise at about 5.40 into it. Its not the best quality vid but how many of you see this?

[bigman]

Originally Posted by Jimmyboy

I don't know. HHH requires you to get the exact same answer 3 times in a row where as THH accounts for the probability that that will rarely happen, which 'may' give it a slight statistical advantage.

No - in 3 standalone tosses (oo-er) HHH is exactly as likely as THH.

But...he was doing a continuous series of tosses until one of those sequences occurred. And that's the key I think.

Whenever HH came up, half of the time it would have been preceeded by a T so that would scupper the chance of them even taking the third toss to see if a third H came up. They'd take it as THH victory and presumably start tossing again from scratch.

He needed to let the other person select their combination first though.

Does that make sense?

[cjanderson]

Originally Posted by B0zza

Nope - Penney's game - 40 year old maths...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penney%27s_game

yep, so it works in a sequence of tosses, and doesn;t if its just 3 coin tosses and then pass to next player (as then both are equally likely)

[Sneeka]

Originally Posted by stephen

I wonder what the chances of someone winning the lottery using this system are? I know it's total rubbish, but say you get 200,000 groups trying it, with odds of 1:14,000,000 it could easily happen in a few years.

The law of averages doesn't apply to something random like the lottery. It doesn't matter how many people you use.

[B0zza]

Originally Posted by stephen

I wonder what the chances of someone winning the lottery using this system are? I know it's total rubbish, but say you get 200,000 groups trying it, with odds of 1:14,000,000 it could easily happen in a few years.

No - the theory is complete ********.

If you have a massive group and you choose between 1 and 49, you will get 25, 25, 25, 25, 25 and 25.

If, like his group, you can choose outside this range including negative numbers (he had to throw this to provide some justification for getting a low number like '2'), you'd actually get 0,0,0,0,0 and 0.

[B0zza]

Originally Posted by Gobias

Well it is all interesting despite it being a poor show tonight. Watching this video you can see the ball on the left (the highest number) appears to rise at about 5.40 into it. Its not the best quality vid but how many of you see this?

You've not read all of this thread then?

[Richie]

Maths is hard!

[AdamBrunt]

Originally Posted by cjanderson

yep, so it works in a sequence of tosses, and doesn;t if its just 3 coin tosses and then pass to next player (as then both are equally likely)

Yep - that's how I read that wiki page too.

And, as I said, not explained very well at all (in terms of how they were playing) during the show.

[bigman]

Originally Posted by Richie

Maths is hard!

But remember, this was 'Deep' Maths.