AI tech 'cannot predict winning lottery numbers'

A lottery sales center seen in Wuhan, Hubei province.(Photo provided to CHINA DAILY)

While artificial intelligence has shown immense potential for applications in various fields, it cannot predict winning lottery numbers, according to a statement issued by sports lottery administrative authorities.

The statement was issued recently by China Sports Lottery, along with the sports lottery administrative center in Guangdong province, in response to some netizens' online posts claiming to have won the lottery using numbers recommended by AI technology service providers.

Each lottery draw is an independent random event, with the winning numbers being generated completely at random and unable to be predicted by any technological means, the statement said.

Following the popularity of Deep-Seek, a booming Chinese AI startup, various types of lottery number prediction services that supposedly make use of AI technology have emerged on Chinese social platforms.

In one example, a netizen purchased lottery tickets based on auspicious numbers provided by AI service providers for 19 days in late 2024, with cumulative losses increasing each time, according to an online post on Xiaohongshu, or RedNote, a Chinese lifestyle platform.

Any individual claiming to increase the chances of winning through AI technology is engaging in fraudulent behavior, according to the statement.

Posts about winning the lottery through AI technology were mostly created by AI software providers, serving as a marketing advertisement to attract users to download the software, the statement said.

Some software platforms often offer a free trial period to entice netizens with initial success — randomly generating numbers and if someone wins, they try to persuade users to invest more in advanced predictions, according to the statement.

AI technologies have performed excellently in fields like healthcare and mathematics, as these domains have discernible patterns that AI can extract from vast amounts of data and make deductions. However, lottery draws are entirely random events with no discernible patterns, making them unpredictable and devoid of any regularity, according to the statement.

The official lottery drawing process is based on the use of physical drawing machines, where the motion of each ball is influenced by airflow, minor vibrations and other factors, making it completely unpredictable and uncontrollable.

Moreover, AI cannot derive any meaningful patterns from past lottery data, with the winning numbers from the previous draw having no impact on the next draw, the Guangdong sports lottery center said.

Therefore, even with powerful tools like DeepSeek, predicting the next winning numbers is impossible. The center called on lottery ticket buyers to remain rational and not believe in so-called AI prediction tools.

Offline authorized sports lottery stores are the only official channels for purchasing sports lottery tickets, according to the center.