1980 Pennsylvania Lottery Scandal - The Drawing

The Drawing

On the night of April 24, 1980, more than six million viewers watched as 666 was pulled as the winning number. Nick Perry, the announcer, never drew the winning numbers; this was always done by a senior citizen volunteer, as the lottery benefits senior citizens in Pennsylvania. (Today, an official draws the numbers, and a senior citizen is on-camera to witness the draw.) Lottery authorities and local bookmakers became suspicious when they noticed that a large number of tickets were purchased for the above eight numbers, and a handful of players came forward to claim approximately $1.8 million of the then-record $3.5 million payout. At first, they had no actual evidence that the drawing was fixed.

The Maragos brothers, on the date of the drawing, travelled around Pennsylvania buying large quantities of tickets containing the eight possible numbers. The investigation was broken open when an anonymous tip led to a bar near Philadelphia where the Maragos brothers had bought a large number of lottery tickets. An employee remembered the Maragos brothers coming into the bar with a platinum blonde woman and laying down a large amount of cash to buy lottery tickets, all on the eight specific numbers. The employee recalled that while he printed the tickets, one of the Maragos brothers made a pay phone call, spoke in a foreign language, and held up the phone so the listener could hear the lottery machine printing the tickets. Investigators pulled the phone records and traced the call to the WTAE-TV announcer's booth in the studio where the drawing was done. This strongly implicated Perry (who, like the Maragoses, could speak fluent Greek), but it was also clear that he could not have acted alone. Further investigation and questioning of the Maragos brothers eventually implicated the rest of the men. William Moran (Fairmont, West Virginia) organized the out-of-state buying of additional lottery tickets for a numbers running scam.

It was later revealed that the Maragos brothers also placed bets on the eight numbers with local bookmakers who had illegal numbers games that used the lottery drawing as the winning result. The brothers also told friends and family which numbers to play. This extra bit of greed may have contributed to the conspiracy's downfall, with the greater influx of slanted bets.