Voting Station

Nick Perry

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TV Personality

The Resume

    (1916-April 22, 2003)
    Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
    Birth name was Nicholas Pericles Katsafanas
    News and weather reporter for WTAE-TV in Pittsburgh
    Hosted 'Bowling for Dollars' and 'Championship Bowling'
    Hosted nightly broadcasts of the Pennsylvania Lottery drawing
    Helped rig the Daily Number drawing (April 24, 1980)
    Convicted of criminal conspiracy, criminal mischief, theft by deception, rigging a publicly exhibited contest, and perjury (1981)
    Served two years in state prison and a year in a halfway house

Why he might be annoying:

    With the help of two stagehands, he had all the lottery balls except 4 and 6 injected with small amounts of paint, so they would rise off the bottom of the machines used in the drawing, but not rise high enough to be sucked into the vacuum tube that drew the numbers.
    The winning number was 6-6-6. (Was someone making an editorial comment to the conspirators?)
    Lottery officials became suspicious of a fix because of the unusually large number of lottery tickets bought using the eight possible combinations of 4 and 6.
    The scandal inspired the flop John Travolta movie 'Lucky Numbers' (2000).

Why he might not be annoying:

    According to a fellow WTAE reporter, 'He was just about as dapper a dresser as I had seen.'
    Most of the $1.8 million paid out to the conspirators was recovered.
    The scandal inspired the lotteries of Pennsylvania and other states to take greater precautions against rigging.
    His family claimed he was a scapegoat, with the state manufacturing a high-profile case against a local celeb to distract media attention from the fact that a lottery official (Edward Plevel) had participated in the fix.

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    For 2024, as of last weekly ranking, Out of 1 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2023, Out of 9 Votes: 44.44% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 2 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 9 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 30 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 7 Votes: 28.57% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 10 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2015, Out of 6 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2014, Out of 12 Votes: 58.33% Annoying
    In 2013, Out of 10 Votes: 60.0% Annoying
    In 2012, Out of 12 Votes: 75.00% Annoying