Why Don’t Psychics Win The Lottery?

Psychic Powers Or Pure Luck?

Psychic Lottery Numbers

Have you ever wondered why psychics, with their supposed ability to see into the future, don’t seem to have much luck when it comes to winning the lottery? After all, you’d think being able to predict the winning numbers would give them a rather huge advantage.
But as it turns out, psychics are rarely the ones cashing in on big lottery winnings. So what gives?

This is a question that comes up a lot on sites like Reddit, Quora and other forums. And it’s a fair question. But it’s one often thrown around by psychic sceptics who don’t properly understand how psychics and fortune telling works.

Today I’ll do a deep dive into this. We’ll take a look at the main questions that come up around psychics and the lottery.
I’ll show you some cases where people claim to have won the lottery after consulting with a psychic, as well as a case of a psychic themselves winning a jackpot.

Most of all though, I’ll try and help you understand the limitations of psychics and how that applies to issues of luck (like the lottery, or other gambling games).

Let’s jump straight in by asking the big question:

So, Can Psychics Win The Lottery?

Don’t hate me for saying this but there’s actually two angles to this question:

  1. Can psychics win the lottery – as in, are they able to?
  2. Can psychics win the lottery, because of being psychic?

The answer to question 1 is – yes, just like any of us are able to. There’s nothing stopping any psychic doing what many of us do – choosing some numbers at random, or that seem meaningful or lucky – any playing them.

The answer to question 2 is slightly more nuanced but is generally answered in the industry with a resounding ‘no’. I’ll go into a more detailed explanation later but in essence there are three reasons for this:

  1. Psychics are about people not computers
  2. Psychics don’t control the future

Why Psychics Can’t Win The Lottery

Powerball Lottery
Image credit: BBC

Psychics – People Not Computers

Whilst AI and machine learning continues to grow at a rapid pace, technology can’t (yet) change the fact that it doesn’t have a mind.
Us humans of course do!
And whilst a human may play some part in the process and theatre of a lottery draw – it’s technology and luck that dictates what numbers come up.

Because of that, there’s no way a psychic or mind reader can ‘tap into’ that.

There’s nothing there – no energy, no soul, no person, no feelings.

“They are chosen by a machine, and we can’t get inside of a machine because it doesn’t have a mind” – Lori Stevens

Speaking to 12News

OK so that part may be obvious – we can hopefully all agree that computers aren’t human and therefore lack a soul or energy that can be tapped into. So let’s talk about the other reasons psychics can’t predict the lottery:

Psychics Can’t Control The Future

Let’s first make a distinction between two types of psychics. One are genuine psychics – or (if you’re a sceptic or someone who doesn’t believe ion psychics) – someone who believes they are a psychic. I.e. people that have good ethics and are doing what they do to help others.

The second group is people who claim to be psychic, whilst knowing they’re not. These are the kind of individuals that spoil the reputation of the industry and are basically scamming people.

So why do I mention this? Well in my experience – no genuine psychic will claim they can predict lottery numbers or control the future.

Now let’s dig into the issue of the future. A key facet in psychic readings (and also tarot and similar disciplines) is that of free will. What is meant by that is regardless of what a psychic reading tells you, and regardless of what is predicted – you determine and control your life.
So let’s say you have a reading and a psychic says “next week you’ll play the lottery and win the jackpot.” The flaw there is it’s up to you whether or not to play the lottery. The psychic can have a feeling or sense that it will happen but they can’t force you to go and do it.

Any decent psychic will always tell you that free will exists and that you have control of your life and destiny.

On the specifics of lotteries, this quote from Tsiuri Nazar on Quora explains it better than I can:

“Psychic readings typically pick up three types of events or happenings: (a) fixed and immutable occurrences you cannot change no matter what you do, (b) likely occurrences you may be able to change with effort, and (c) matters which are entirely at the discretion of the subject, and open to their free will. Most lottery systems do not select the winning numbers ahead of time (if they do, I can pick them up). Instead, they are drawn “live”. This is one of those times when a lot of free will can influence the outcome.

The resulting choices will differ if the drawer uses their left hand instead of their right, if they recognise one of the lottery balls/tickets, if they have a vested interest in drawing certain numbers, if they are intently focussed on specific numbers in their mind, etc. What you tend to pick up on from a psychic perspective will be likelihoods based on statistics; if a 9 hasn’t come up for several weeks, it’s statistically likely a 9 will come up tonight, that’s probably why you’ll see it if you concentrate on tonight’s numbers. It’s 9’s time, not a choice the drawer is making.

Psychics Don’t Always See Everything Or Perfectly

Psychics can guide you and offer you insight. They can often have an idea of what may be in your future. Often they can help you make decisions about your life.

But it’s not an exact science. Sure, psychics (real ones) have intuition. They can help you heal and to communicate with other spirit realms. But what they’re not going to see is an exact future in absolute detail that absolutely will happen.

Remember It’s About Luck

My favorite quote on the topic is this:

“They are just lucky sons-of-bitches” – Erin Pavlina

Speaking to TheLotter.com

12 Times Psychic Powers Helped Win The Lottery

There haven’t been tons of cases where people have won big and either said they were a psychic, or attributed their win to advice from a psychic. That in itself backs up the argument that psychics can’t predict or win the lottery based on their powers.

The below isn’t exhaustive – it can’t be – but here are 12 occasions when psychic abilities have been attributed to winning the jackpot (or just a big win) in the press:

CountryYearNameAmount Won
2010EnglandOcean Kinge£1,000,000 (shared)
2012ScotlandBeti Schulz£730,000 (shared)
2015EnglandLynne Groves£1,000,000
2015USAKevin Millard$1,000,000
2017EnglandSandra Murrell£70,000
2017USACarolyn O’Brien$3,000,000
2017USADavid Thomson$160,000
2019EnglandMark Brookes£359,514
2020AustraliaAnonymousAUD$866,700
2021AustraliaAnonymous$AUD 9,738,691
2022USA‘Wezzie Brunswick’$40,000

Let’s explore some of the stories behind the winners and find out what really happened (and in some cases what happened next):

Ocean Kinge

Image credit: Lewis Whyld/PA Wire

Ocean won an amazing but slightly satanic sounding £66,666.66 when her and some friends who had a syndicate won a £1million prize in the EuroMillions back in 2010. They won this on Christmas Eve – which surely has to be one of the best Christmas presents ever received!

Ocean (who was 45 at the time), told press just after her win that she’d felt she was psychic since she was 19. A psychic she’d visited had told her she had special powers. This appeared to pay off when she had a feeling that her and friends would win big towards the end of 2010.
Going off that feeling (she says she felt very clearly it was going to be a million pounds), she set up a syndicate and the rest is history.

But there’s a twist to this tale – in 2012, Ocean started as an advisor for people who win or win big in the lottery. To be clear, this wasn’t advising in a psychic capacity. Lottery advisors are there to help people who win big amounts of money – to guide and support them, as suddenly coming into large amounts of wealth can be very overwhelming and daunting to people.

As to what happened after that – I don’t know. All my research reached a brick wall after 2012. Ocean – if you’re reading this – let me know what the next chapter in your story was!

Beti Schulz

Beti Schultz - Psychic
Image Credit: DailyRecord

In this tale, we have an actual psychic who won the lottery then quit being a psychic.

Back in October of 2012, Beti (then aged 71) won a massive £730,000 – this was her split of a three-person syndicate that won £2.2 million.

It’s unclear as to all the reasons Beti then retired, but she gave us an idea when she told press “I’m finished with work. I’m tired of it.”

Frankly, after a win that big, and having worked to age 70+, I think that’s more than fair!

Beti was quoted as saying about her abilities “I use my insight as well as reading Tarot cards. I don’t call it anything like that.”
To me, that’s an indication she maybe a ‘real’ psychic. She isn’t hamming up her skills and wasn’t being egotistic. Notice that she didn’t explicitly say her powers had helped her predict the numbers or anything similar.

I wasn’t able to find anything showing us what happened next in Beti’s journey; perhaps she ended up returning to work as a psychic – or perhaps she’s quite rightly enjoying her well earned retirement!

Wezzie Brunswick

Wezzie Brunwsick
Image credit: People.com

‘Wezzie’, as you might imagine, is a pseudonym. Many people who win the lottery prefer to maintain anonymity but I don’t think many use pretend names.

Anyway, in this case from December 2022, ‘Wezzie’ won a good chunk of change in his $40,000 win on the Mega Millions. Granted, compared with some of the winners we’ve mentioned in this article, it’s relatively low, but it’s still a good amount.

Before we talk about the ‘psychic’ side of this story, it’s worth noting that ‘Wezzie’ had previously done well – having won $50,000 in 2017 on a scratchcard.

So where do psychics come in? Well in the case of Wezzie Brunswick – rather spuriously. In a press release, he said a psychic told him two years prior that his dead father wanted him to play and win the lottery.
The psychic said he should play certain numbers that carried significance – e.g. birthdays.

This didn’t work for him though and actually for the ticket he won big on, he chose random numbers.
I think in Wezzie’s case – whether we believe psychics can predict lottery numbers/winnings or not – there isn’t any real connection here.
After all – he was keen on gambling even before he met a psychic. Secondly, the psychic had stressed the importance of using certain numbers – which failed to work.

I think the media enjoyed this element of the story though – most smaller wins like this wouldn’t make mainstream news without some element of curiosity like the psychic angle Wezzie’s had.

Anonymous

Australian Powerball
Image credit: Lottery24

Whilst Wezzie’s win was relatively small, over in Australia in 2021 a lady, who chose to be anonymous, won a cool AUD$9,738,691 in the Aussie version of the Powerball. For those of us in the USA, that equates to a massive $7.5 million.
She funded the tickets using $13 she’d won on the Powerball before – that’s quite a return on that investment!

The fact she’d won came as a surprise. She told press she’d seen an article on social media about a mystery/unclaimed winner. She then checked her tickets and was, unsurprisingly, quite shocked when she realised she’d won! (A shock I’d love to have though!)
Whilst Ms. Anon wasn’t psychic, she explained that her mother had seen a psychic recently. The psychic had said “someone on the family will win the lottery and help the rest of the family”.

And that’s what happened. Ms. Anon went on to pay off mortgages and buy cars for her family, and last heard of, was going to buy a new house.
All kudos to her, although I don’t feel the psychic really ‘predicted’ this.

Mark Brookes

Mark Brookes - Postcode Lottery Winner
Image credit:YorkMix.com

The People’s Postcode Lottery is a UK based draw (not one of the ‘main’ ones from the National Lottery). In the summer of 2019 a builder from York, England, played it and won £359,514.
That was made up of two equal sums of £179,757, as he’d played two tickets.

Mark told press at the time “I actually wrote down three amounts on a piece of paper that I thought I’d win – two were low but then I wrote down £178,201 and I just thought that figure was the one. I wasn’t far away. The only other person I showed this to was my son. I’ve been doing mediumship for a hobby.

I couldn’t find much detail about him doing mediumship so it’s hard to say whether he was genuine or skilled. I tried to follow up what happened after but all I can find is that he is still doing building. Certainly Mark was very close to guessing the amount he’d win but was it luck or psychic power? And is him having been a ‘hobby’ medium a red herring in this story?

We’ll probably never know!

Lynne Groves

Lynne Groves - Lottery Winner
Image credit: Daily Star

The final story I’ll delve into is that of Lynne Groves. As you can see, at the time she had this photo taken she was pretty damn happy – and with good reason. She’d just won £1million on the Euro Millions. Hence the champagne 🙂

An interesting twist here – Lynne had actually asked for a National Lottery/lotto ticket using her usual numbers. The newsagent accidentally printed a EuroMillions ticket. He then printed a ‘lucky dip’ Lotto ticket to rectify this – which of course had the winning numbers. Sometimes fate moves in mysterious ways!

That in itself is amazing. But of course there’s a psychic angle to this story. Just a few months before she hit big, Lynne had consulted with a psychic. Her aim had actually been to contact her late father. This is a common reason people consult online psychics and live ones.
Lynne had a very intense reading. As she told press: “When I saw the clairvoyant it was like being with my dad, but in another person’s body.

Apart from the clear connection with Lynne’s father, the psychic also told her she would never have to worry about money again.
And, unless Lynne has now spent all her winnings, that could well be true.

But what of the psychic? Well this was a clairvoyant called Jill Childs. Bizarrely though I can’t find any trace of her online – only news articles and blog pieces like this that mention her. So whether she’s still practicing, has a good reputation etc. – I have no idea!

Summary

So there we have it. Each of us will have our own opinions as to whether psychics rea real, or whether they can predict lottery numbers.
In my opinion – psychics can’t predict the lottery numbers – or at least, with no more accuracy than anyone else can.

Sources

  • Psychic had feeling she would win million pounds on lottery (Guardian)
  • Maryland Man Wins $40k lottery prize after psychic told him his late father wanted him to play (People)
  • Woman scoops $7.5 million in lottery after psychic predicted win (Newsweek)
  • Psychic quits job.. after winning 2.2m on National Lottery (Daily Record)
  • Psychic builder from York predicted his huge lottery win – and even wrote down the sum! (YorkMix)
  • Psychic won lottery after clairvoyant said she would come into money (Birmingham Live)
  • Online psychic’s messages leads to lottery win (NBC Los Angeles)
  • NJ man says psychic predicted lottery win (Eyewitness News)
  • Perth couple who won $850K sought out clairvoyant before buying Lotto ticket (7News)
  • Medium forecast Lynne’s £1m win (Daily Star)
  • ‘Psychic’ syndicate winner becomes lottery advisor (Surrey Live)
  • Can a psychic predict the winning lottery numbers? (12News)
  • If psychics are supposed to know the future, how come they never win the lottery? (Quora/Tsiuri Nazar)

Psychics and Lotteries – FAQs

Is It Illegal For Psychics To Win The Lottery?

No, it’s not. And here’s why – given there’s no real evidence psychics can predict lottery numbers (and also any decent psychic is clear they can’t do that anyway), there’s no need.

Are Any Psychics Banned From The Lottery?

Nope – for the reasons mentioned above.

How Many Psychics Have Won The Lottery?

It’s impossible to say how many psychics have won the lottery. Here’s why:

There’s no ‘official’ list of it
There’s no way of 100% proving someone is a psychic
If someone did win off the back of having psychic powers, they may not want to say it
Even if a psychic did win the lottery, it doesn’t categorically prove it’s because they are psychic – it’s a game of luck

Can Psychics Predict My Lottery Numbers?

No. Well, they could do – but that would be a pure fluke rather than having psychic skills. There’s no evidence that a psychic can predict lottery numbers and as I said earlier – no decent reputable psychic or fortune teller would claim they could.