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The Pokémon Lottery is a mini-game that has appeared in every Pokémon game since Pokémon Gold and Silver and it's almost impossible to get a perfect win. It's often found within a city or town that the player explores during normal play, like the Lottery Corner in the Lilycove department store in Hoenn, or the Lottery Desk in the Goldenrod Radio Tower in Johto. These reset on a timer, and Pokémon trainers can enter the lottery without contributing. But even though it's incredibly hard to win, it's still possible, as one player recently proved.
The lottery system in Pokémon games makes extensive use of the properly established pseudo-random number generator. When the game needs to generate a new Lottery value, it creates a trainer ID that can't be viewed by the player without cheats. In the Generation 2 games, this is once a week. Games following on from this generate a TID for the lottery every day. This value is how the game decides if a player will win the lottery. This trainer ID is compared to the trainer ID of all Pokémon in the player's party, in addition to the trainer ID of all Pokémon in the PC box that was last selected. If any digits in the trainer IDs match, then the player will be rewarded with prizes, depending on the number of digits that match. The chances of obtaining a Master Ball from the lottery are roughly 1/65,536.
Reddit user cgw3737 created a recent post showing that they actually won the lottery in Pokémon Silver. The screenshot they provided highlights the Master Ball reward. This was met with multiple comments, both praising and congratulating the user while joking about other exploits available in the earlier Pokémon Games. User Mac_Kymera jokingly commented “Now go do the duplication glitch to get more!” while user Scared-Wish-2596 stated “Raikou won't see the ball coming in the first encounter lol.”
Winning the lottery is, of course, entirely down to chance. But depending on the game the lottery is trying to be beaten in, there are certain actions that can be taken to slightly increase the odds of winning. In Generation 2, accumulating a high number of Pokémon with unique trainer IDs is the way to go. This can be done by trading Pokémon with other save files until the player's party, and one whole PC box is filled with Pokémon from various original trainers. From Generation 3 onward, the lottery will check the generated ID against all Pokémon in the player's PC, not just the selected box. The number generated for the lottery is generated at the start of each day, and cannot be reset. Once the player has checked their numbers, they cannot check for the rest of the day. Filling up the PC with Pokémon that have unique IDs is a strategic way to increase lottery odds.
The lottery corner is placed in different areas in different Pokémon Games. In Generation 2, the Lottery Corner is located in the Goldenrod Radio Tower. Generation 3 houses the Lottery Corner in the Lilycove Department Store, while Generation 4 places it in the Jubilife TV building in Jubilife City. Generation 5 opted for a raffle instead of a lottery, but Generation 6 brought back the Lottery Corner and placed it on Estival Avenue in Lumiose City. Generation 7 places the Lottery Corner at the Alola Tourist Bureau in Hau'oli City, and Generation 8 places the lottery in the Pokémon centers.
Rewards differ slightly for each game, with some games including lucky eggs instead of max revives. Some of the rewards available are more useful than others, with the higher tier rewards typically being reserved for having four or five matching digits. There are some exploits available to the player that enable the lottery to be slightly manipulated, but these require careful inputs and well-rounded knowledge of RNG manipulation as a whole. RNG manipulation is the act of feeding carefully tuned numbers to the game's pseudo-random number generator. The reason the random number generator isn't truly random is that the Pokémon games are built to operate offline, without access to the internet. Because of this, there is no way to truly generate a random number - computers and algorithms will always use previously defined numbers in calculations to give the perception of "randomness."
Entering the Pokémon Lottery takes nothing other than a couple of minutes from the player. There is no admission or price to pay for entering the lottery, and it's an in-game event that occurs every day. If smaller quests and activities are what's desired, each game has a number of tasks that can be participated in for prizes and opportunities. These began in Generation 2, with most in the Generations 3 and 4 games.
Gen 2 has daily headbutt Pokémon from trees, in addition to the bug catching contest. Generation 3 has beauty contests and the Pokéblock house. Generation 4 has different fossils occurring underground each day, and that only expands upon acquiring the national dex. Furthermore, the Sinnoh games have honey trees that have a chance to reveal the rare honey tree Munchlax. Gen 5 has super contests, in addition to Join Avenue in Black 2 and White 2, while Generation 6 has the Aroma Lady on Route 126. Most of the time, players would be very lucky to receive a reward for matching two or three digits in the Pokémon Lottery. As mentioned, players have a 1/65,536 chance, or a 0.0015% chance, of having a full five matching digits. However, that's still higher than a zero-percent chance. Since the in-game lottery doesn't require anything other than a couple of minutes from the player, it can be worth investigating the next time a Pokémon game is loaded.