Gould was a lawyer for 13 years in Matamata, New Zealand, before coming to Hong Kong in 1982 where he worked his way up to become Chief District Judge in 1993. He retired from the Judiciary in 1997 and, that same year, during a visit to Japan, he was in a bookstore where, not knowing how to read or speak Japanese, he was drawn to the puzzle which he first thought was a crossword. He was intrigued and later on he decided to take it with him to the United States and Britain. After his initial retirement, in efforts to pass time and sharpen his computer skills, Gould developed the computer program that generates Sudoku puzzles. Wayne Gould says retirement can now wait as Sudoku keeps him busier than ever. He travels between his different bases; Lantau and New Hampshire in the United States, where his wife Gaye is a professor of linguistics, and other parts of the world to which his new hobby has taken him. He has two children, daughter Sally, 29, and son, Scott, 27.