Past results do not influence future draws. Credit: S.C.
In the weeks leading up to Spain’s Christmas Lottery draw, it is easy to find online claims that artificial intelligence can predict the winning number of El Gordo. Various tools based on popular large language models promise forecasts supposedly grounded in sophisticated analyses of historical lottery data. Charts, statistics and technical jargon give these predictions an air of credibility. At a time when artificial intelligence continues to demonstrate impressive progress in areas ranging from image recognition to language translation, it may seem plausible that it could also uncover hidden patterns in the lottery. In reality, this promise is nothing more than a modern myth, fuelled by misunderstandings about both probability and the true capabilities of data analysis.
A game designed so that every number is equally likely
The Christmas Lottery is deliberately designed to ensure that every number has exactly the same chance of winning in each draw. All balls are identical in size, weight and material, they are thoroughly mixed inside the drum and drawn completely at random. There is no physical or mathematical feature that makes one number more likely than another. Whether a number is considered attractive, ugly, meaningful or completely random has no impact whatsoever on its probability. Although many people avoid buying tickets such as 00000, the lottery itself has no such bias: that number is just as likely to be drawn as any other combination.
Why past results do not influence future draws
A widespread belief among players is that the history of previous draws somehow affects what will happen next. Some assume that a number which has not appeared for decades is “due” to come out, while others avoid last year’s winning number because they think it cannot possibly win again. This way of thinking is known as the gambler’s fallacy and is based on the mistaken idea that random processes have memory. A simple example is tossing a coin: even if it lands heads five times in a row, the probability of heads or tails on the next toss remains exactly 50 per cent. Each event is independent of what happened before.
The confusion between frequencies and individual events
At the heart of this fallacy lies a confusion between two very different concepts: long-term frequencies and individual outcomes. Over a very large number of trials, the proportion of results tends to approach their theoretical probabilities. This statistical principle is known as the law of large numbers. However, it does not apply to single events, nor does it imply that a system “corrects” itself after unusual sequences. Each individual draw in the Christmas Lottery is unaffected by previous draws, no matter how striking or repetitive those past results may appear.
What the law of large numbers really tells us
The law of large numbers simply states that as the number of independent trials increases, the relative fluctuations in outcomes become smaller. For example, if a coin is tossed only ten times, it is perfectly normal to obtain eight heads and two tails. If the same coin is tossed tens of thousands of times, the proportion of heads and tails will usually be very close to 50 per cent. In the case of the Christmas Lottery, just over 200 draws have taken place since its creation. Compared with the 100,000 possible numbers, this is an extremely small sample, making apparent patterns both inevitable and misleading.
Illusions created by small samples of data
Because the historical record of the Christmas Lottery is so limited, it is easy to observe numerical coincidences that look like meaningful trends but are not. For instance, if a slightly higher proportion of winning numbers end in five rather than two, this does not mean that numbers ending in five are more likely to win. Such irregularities are exactly what statisticians expect to see in small samples of random data. They are not signals, but noise. Unfortunately, these coincidences are often misinterpreted as evidence of hidden规律 that can be exploited.
Why AI-based lottery predictions do not work
So-called “advanced lottery analysers” often rely on machine learning models trained on historical winning numbers. These systems are excellent at detecting patterns in data, but that strength becomes a weakness when the data itself is random. What the algorithms identify are false patterns that have no predictive power. Artificial intelligence cannot distinguish between a genuine underlying trend and a coincidence produced by chance if no real structure exists. As a result, these tools cannot offer better predictions than picking a number at random.
How many draws would be needed to see true balance
If the Christmas Lottery were repeated an enormous number of times, the distribution of winning numbers would gradually even out. Each of the 100,000 possible numbers would tend towards the same probability: one in 100,000. According to Carlos García Mexide, a predoctoral researcher at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, basic probability calculations suggest that more than one million draws would be required for every number to have won El Gordo at least once. Even then, it would still be impossible to predict which number would win in any individual draw.