There is a chap in Norfolk,
Virginia, USA, by the name of Chris McDonald who predicts the results of
American state lotteries. He operates on
Facebook and claims to have been extremely successful. He offers two types of service, free and
paid-for. For the former, he throws out
3-digit numbers when people ask him about particular lotteries in the comments
to his posts. Curiously nobody seems to
have replied thanking him for a win.
As well as providing the free
3-digit numbers, he has a private service predicting the better-paying 4- 5-
and 6-number lotteries, for which he takes ‘donations’. For this, people contact him on Facebook to
‘schedule’ ‘consultations’. To someone wanting
to make a ‘donation’ he replied by requesting they contact him privately and
added ‘my fee is cheap’. This method may
result in lack of public feedback by any dissatisfied paying customers.
His psychic ability must be
fairly recent because in July 2017 he ran a Gofundme effort to purchase an
aeroplane ticket to start a new job in Washington DC which only raised
$25. Presumably that is why he is still
in Virginia. However, in preceding years
he did win free pizzas in giveaway competitions so perhaps there was a psychic
component to that.
In December 2018 he began a
YouTube channel which he intended to update with weekly predictions starting in
January 2019, but this has not taken off and only the initial video exists thus
far. In it he says he also predicts the
outcomes of American football games, but there is no more information available
on this aspect of his claimed abilities.
McDonald is not promising correct
numbers for specific lottery draws. He
will make a series of predictions for the next few days that might apply either
to daytime or nighttime draws. Thus
following his tips will require some outlay as one of a selection of numbers supplied
might be predicted to come up in one of say six games, two per day over three
days.
As to how I know of McDonald’s
existence, he contacted me on the Society for Psychical Research’s Facebook
page to tell me about his ability. Over
the years have handled a number of approaches to the SPR claiming abilities of
various kinds such as telepathy, clairvoyance and precognition, though fewer
recently than used to be the case. I was
quite happy to see if McDonald could predict lottery numbers accurately, or at
least enough to come out ahead financially.
Often there is an assumption that
success would result in an endorsement by the Society. When I have explained that as the SPR does
not hold corporate views it cannot as an organisation endorse a psychic claim
as true, claimants often fade away, the demonstration being of secondary
importance to the desire for validation they can use for promotional purposes.
Some stay and say they would like
to demonstrate the ability anyway. I
have done a variety of simple tests that would not in themselves provide strong
evidence of psi, but might perhaps throw up possibilities warranting more
rigorous examination. To date I have not
had any successes, and when this happens I try to be kind. I will say the result might be due to the
test not accurately reflecting their ability, it was an artificial situation so
perhaps did not generate the required motivation, such abilities cannot be
summoned on tap, or perhaps I was not the right person to conduct the test.
I never say the ability does not
exist because I would not want to hurt their feelings, and who knows, perhaps
one of those reasons was correct. The person
invariably takes the result with good grace, I suspect mostly concluding they do
have the ability but it works best in spontaneous circumstances, and we part
amicably.
McDonald, however, was to prove
far from amicable. He got in touch via
Facebook Messenger on Monday 4 March to tell me he can predict lottery numbers
‘accurately’. He had called his local
radio station last July when they asked for ‘psychic stuff’ and given them
numbers live on air. He stated he had
correctly called numbers for a $100,000 win, plus a correct ‘mega ball’ number.
He said that for proof I should
check the show’s archive or call the station.
Doing so would not have proved anything because all lottery games are
won by somebody getting the numbers right (leaving aside rollovers). Assuming McDonald had called the numbers
correctly, and I have no reason to doubt him, it could have been by
chance. In any case, if his ability was
as strong as he led me to believe I hoped to be able to see for myself.
I replied by congratulating him
and wondering if he could maintain that success rate. He then assured me he had been keeping
records of his predictions, amounting in October 2018 to the incredible total
of about $534,435,000, since when he has been predicting all 50 US state
lotteries. He implied he had been
placing bets when he said ‘do you see how serious this is?? ~ or ~ do i need
show you my bank acct. for proof??’
He told me he wanted to be
studied and gave me more anecdotes of impressive guesses, though not ones he
had put cash on. Already I was getting
conflicting messages of a great talent but not one backed by consistently
placing bets. Still, it seemed worth
pursuing further as from what I could deduce reading his rambling messages he
claimed a hit rate of about 50% from making predictions for ‘Facebook psychic
groups’.
So I asked him if he would make
predictions for me, stating the lottery the prediction related to and when it
would be drawn, to allow me to make my own check. At the same time I asked why he did not
always place a bet to back his guesses.
Strangely he told me to forget the financial part and asked me if I
wanted to be the first to believe him – which was curious if he was giving
numbers to strangers on Facebook.
Wouldn’t they believe him when they were successful, and keep coming
back for more?
I stressed that I needed the predictions
in advance because anecdotes of past glories were irrelevant to a controlled
test. After asking me if I was in North
Carolina (no), he chose the Virginia Pick 4, which is called twice daily. He gave me five 4-digit numbers and said one
should come up in the next three days; a generous latitude, but at this stage I
was happy to set the bar low. Conditions
could be tightened after an initial success.
Sadly, his numbers did not come
up so I was glad I had not placed bets on his recommendations. While not a promising start, I was happy to
give it another go. When I sent the
results I mentioned that he had said he could demonstrate his success by
showing me his bank balance, and I asked how often he actually put money
down. I was thinking of the point
sometimes made that psi employed for one’s own financial gain will fail,
whereas when used with a humanitarian motive it is more likely to succeed. What I got back surprised me, as I had not
realised I must have touched a nerve:
‘You idiot...call the radio station I
gave 100,000 dollar win numbers to and again the Mega ball number on air
live...you do that or explain as mathematical probability?? Go fuck yourself’
Once again I pointed out that,
while suggestive, claiming hits retrospectively cannot be compared to
conducting a controlled test. He did not
have to be able to succeed every time, but he needed to be able to at a rate
significantly greater than chance. In
return he reiterated his successful past results as I tried in vain to explain
the scientific method. After further
rudeness from McDonald our correspondence petered out.
My concern is that people may
actually be giving him money for shaky predictions, leaving them out of pocket. Naturally, as always in such cases, one
wonders why somebody successful at making predictions would want to take a few
dollars from Facebook acquaintances if the lottery itself is a potential cash
cow providing free money. More to the
point, why isn’t McDonald now a multi-millionaire?
