The Bowling Host Who Rigged the Pennsylvania Lottery

Bowling for Dollars host Nick Perry helped rig the live Pennsylvania Lottery drawing that produced 666. The warning came from illegal bookmakers.

Bowling for Dollars brought local viewers onto television for a dollar a pin. In Pittsburgh, its host Nick Perry became a familiar face on WTAE, then took another job at the same station: announcing Pennsylvania’s Daily Number. The bowling show rewarded a good roll. The lottery was supposed to reward chance. On April 24, 1980, the man announcing the result was part of the plot behind it.

The scheme used replica ping-pong balls weighted with white latex paint, leaving only the fours and sixes untouched. A thousand possible combinations became eight, and the Maragos brothers bought tickets across the state. When 666 came up, the drawing produced a record $3.5 million total payout. But the conspirators also bet through illegal bookmakers, whose unusual exposure to combinations of fours and sixes gave them a reason to question the result.

Pittsburgh numbers boss Tony Grosso helped bring the suspicions into public view while state officials initially denied evidence of a fix. Investigators followed the ticket buying and telephone records back toward Perry, and the case ended in convictions and new safeguards. The story runs from local bowling television to the Triple Six Fix, with a reversal at its center: the people operating outside the law helped expose the fraud inside the official game.

Chapters:
0:00 Bowling’s TV Host and the 666 Drawing
0:31 Bowling for Dollars: A Dollar Per Pin
2:35 Nick Perry Becomes the Lottery’s Voice
4:31 White Paint Changes the Lottery Odds
5:54 The Maragos Brothers Buy the Numbers
6:52 Tony Grosso’s Bookmakers Spot the Fix
9:34 A Cadillac and the Call to Nick Perry
10:29 Nick Perry Faces the Lottery-Fix Jury
11:27 The $3.5 Million Payout Needs Explaining
12:35 What Changed After the Triple Six Fix

Sources:
Pennsylvania appellate opinion, Commonwealth v. Katsafanas: https://law.justia.com/cases/pennsylvania/supreme-court/1983/318-pa-super-143-1.html
WESA: Triple Six Fix: https://www.wesanews.org/archives/2015-06-19/triple-six-fix-how-rigging-the-pa-lottery-inadvertently-contributed-to-its-success
Pennsylvania State Police Museum: Lottery Investigation: https://www.psp-hemc.org/museum/lottery.html
The Hustle: The local TV star who rigged the lottery: https://thehustle.co/the-local-tv-star-who-rigged-the-lottery