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Read Full BioThe Norwegian Lottery Authority has ruled that Norsk Tipping broke the law when sending out erroneous messages to lottery players, inflating their winnings.
On June 27, Norsk Tipping, Norway’s state-owned gambling operator, notified 47,000 lottery players that they had won amounts far exceeding their actual prizes.
A coding error had caused the mistake to send out the inflated prizes, although no mistakes were made in payouts.
In a statement on the Norwegian Lottery Authority’s website, Anya Therese Markhus, Senior Advisor at the organization, stated: “Norsk Tipping has violated the Gambling Act. People should be able to trust their games. The fact that several thousand players receive a notice of excessive winnings is clearly harmful to trust.”
Norsk Tipping CEO Resigns After Disappointing Players
Norsk Tipping CEO Tonje Sagstuen resigned a day after the error, commenting: “I am terribly sorry that we have disappointed so many, and I understand that people are angry with us. Criticism is justified given the breach of trust.”
Sagstuen continued: “To them I can only say: Sorry! But I understand that it is a small consolation.”
Ole Fredrik Sveen, a teacher, recounted being abroad in Greece when he received a message declaring a NOK 1.2 million ($120,000) win, when in fact he’d only won NOK 125 ($12).
Sveen said, “At first you’re ecstatic… then thankfully we kept our heads cool and realised it wasn’t meant to be this time either.”
He added that he had “lost confidence in the lottery and would think twice about playing in future.”
A Series of Errors From Norsk Tipping
Erlend Hanstveit, State Secretary to Norway’s Culture Minister, Lubna Jaffery, commented that the error was “serious and indicates that the company does not have adequate control procedures.”
He added that it is not the first time Norsk Tipping has made a mistake, stating, “Unfortunately, this error is part of a series of incidents at Norsk Tipping in recent times.”
“Ever since the first errors were uncovered, the ministry has closely followed the matter, and we have an ongoing dialogue with both Norsk Tipping and the Norwegian Lottery Authority. We need to understand how such errors can happen and how we can prevent them from occurring in the future.”
The operator is also under investigation for reportedly allowing minors to engage in gambling activities. The Norwegian Lottery Authority received an alert from a bank that a large sum of money had been transferred from a minor to Norsk Tipping.
The investigation is ongoing with Tore Bell, Department Director at the Norwegian Lottery Authority, stating: “It is too early to determine what has happened. We will investigate the matter further and have asked Norsk Tipping for more information.”
This investigation comes after the regulator issued a fine of NOK 4.5 million (approximately $440,000) for a payout error, which resulted in a player being paid NOK 25 million (approximately $2.5 million).
Norsk Tipping had not realized the error until the player alerted the operator. In line with its customer agreement, the player paid back the money.
After ruling that the recent error is also in violation of the country’s Gambling Act, another fine is likely to be forthcoming.
