I can tell you without question that to “predict” the lottery numers Wednesday night, Derren Brown used nothing more than a cheap video editing technique. He used what is called a split-screen transition. What we are looking at is two different images spliced together to seem as one. The image of Derren and the tv is live while the image of the balls on the stand is a still image recorded earlier. So as the lotto numbers are being read out, a stagehand will simply place the correct balls onto the stand while all the while we are watching prerecorded footage of the stand from earlier. Then the stagehand walks away and they simply return to the full live image when Derren approaches the balls. This transition is seemless as the camera remains still so you do not notice anything.

So there you have it, the prediction was nothing more than shoddy camera trickery, much like that hack Criss Angel uses all the time. Well done Derren!