Newsmakers: Looking back at NZ's first ever live Lotto draw

1News

21 hours ago

In this week's Newsmakers Revisited, we head back to the first-ever live Lotto draw in New Zealand.
Radio presenter Doug Harvey and dancer Annie Wilson were the original hosts for the television debut on August 1, 1987.
New Zealanders tuning into the draw were introduced to a very expensive piece of machinery - the barrel - a big plastic container holding the Lotto balls.
In a sign of the times, people living rurally were given details of how they could get a ticket delivered by mail order.
Also in the studio with the hosts were three scrutineers who sat and watched to make sure everything was above board.
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Wilson said that during the first draw, she wasn't thinking about the people who might be winning, but making sure she was at her best.
"I don't think I thought about that at the time. I think I was just too busy reading the autocue and just making sure that knowing it was live, just to be on the ball, not to use a pun."
She'd had to audition for the job by pretending the balls were falling and reading them out.
The first ball of the first-ever lotto draw was number four, but Annie didn't have much time to dwell on the inaugural show — she had another performance to get to.
"I was also performing in a show at eight o'clock that night. So literally, the draw happened, the champagne bottle, the cork got popped, and I had to go.
"My mum was waiting outside in the little mini, [I was] changing into my costume over the Harbour Bridge and pulling my costume on, doing my makeup. Literally, someone shoved a mic on me and bang, I was on stage. It was a pretty funny night."
Her love of the stage soon overcame her love for TV. She played Janet in the Rocky Horror Show with Russel Crowe and Sir Rob Muldoon. A stint as Dr Ropata's unfaithful fiancée on Shortland Street followed.
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But it was the weekly few minutes of the lotto draw that made people feel like they knew her, often stopping her on the street to say, "I hope you've got my numbers for Saturday". But those couple of minutes could be fraught.
"One day, there was a light that exploded about a minute before we were about to go live. And it was just chaos and panic and sweeping up glass.
"So those things happen. And I think one night we couldn't even do the draw because the machine wouldn't work. So we had to come on and say, 'Sorry. Here we are, but we can't do it'."
However, that first draw in August 1987 went off without a hitch, with a Division One prize pool of $359,808.45.