4 years ago in Pittsburgh >>
The Real Story Behind "Lucky Numbers"
PITTSBURGH (October 30, 2000) -- While movie critics are busy bagging the recently released movie "Lucky Numbers" starring John Travolta and Lisa Kudrow, few remember, or know about, the real-life infamous "666 Fix" scandal that inspired the movie.
On April 24, 1980, six million viewers tuned in to watch Pittsburgh television personality Nick Perry draw 666 for a then-record $3.5 million Pennsylvania daily number payout.
Perry conspired with in-studio lottery security official Edward Plevel to replace a set of table tennis balls numbered 0 through 9 with balls that were weighted so only those numbered 4 and 6 would be pulled up by the vacuum-like drawing machines.
The pair first tried injecting the balls with baby powder. When that didn't work, they tried talcum powder and sugar, and then, improbably, Vaseline.
They finally settled on painting the 4 and 6 balls with latex paint.
Perry's outside agents were brothers Jack and Peter Maragos of Pittsburgh and James Maragos of Delaware County, who spent the day of the drawing feverishly buying nearly $100,000 worth of tickets and ended up temporarily pocketing about $1.2 million of the record payout.
James West, who prosecuted Perry and his confederates, and Steph Rosenfeld, a special assistant to the state attorney general at the time, both agreed that the fix might never have been revealed were it not for one very important angle that Perry overlooked:
Bookies base their own daily number - the so-called street number - on the state's number. They took a drubbing when 666 came up, caught wind of the fix and, in a legendary reversal of roles, ratted out the conspirators.
Lottery security official Plevel served two years of a seven-year sentence. Two of the brothers Maragos agreed to testify against Perry in exchange for not doing jail time, while the other brother and two TV studio stagehands who were aware of the fix served shorter sentences.
Perry - real name Nicholas Pericles Katsafanas - served two years of a seven-year sentence before returning to TV a few rungs down the career ladder as host of a Pittsburgh-area show called "Jackpot Bowling."
Now in his early 90s, he was honoured last year as a 50-year Pittsburgh TV pioneer and is said to live somewhere in Western Pennsylvania.
The fix resulted in several state lottery reforms.
The daily drawing was moved to Harrisburg. And, instead of a TV personality presiding, the honor goes to a senior citizen who is observed by two security officials and a certified public accountant. The balls are weighed before and after every drawing.
Since the fix, 666 has come up 11 times in the Daily Numbers Game.
Meanwhile, the all-time daily number payout record has soared to $38 million from a June 1991 drawing.
The number was 777.
SOURCE: Compiled by LI staff from local media reports.