Lottery operator faces heavy fine over Eurojackpot prize blunder
Norsk Tipping has been notified of a €860m fine for the error, which resulted in thousands of winners being notified of excessively large prizes.
Norway.- The Norwegian gambling regulator Lottstift has announced that it has notified the state-controlled monopoly gambling operator of a NOK 10m (€860m) fine over a blunder in which thousands of Eurojackpot winners were told they had won inflated prizes.
In connection with the Eurojackpot draw on June 27 this year, 47,000 winners were incorrectly notified that they had won excessively large prizes. Some 30,000 of these received prize alerts in the form of SMS or push notifications on their phones about the large prize amounts.
The cause of the error was an error in a formula used when converting the prize from Eurocents to Norwegian kroner. It was multiplied by one hundred instead of dividing by one hundred. CEO Tonje Sagstuen stepped down in the wake of the scandal and Lottstift announced an investigation into the operator’s lottery operations.
The regulator has now confirmed that it intends to fine Norsk Tipping 0.1 percent of its turnover, which was just over NOK 10.2bn in 2024. This comes on the heels of a fine of NOK46m (approximately €3.9m) issued earlier in the month for a major technical error affecting Eurojackpot and Lotto draws that skewed odds in favour of syndicates over solo participants.
“Players should be able to trust Norsk Tipping, and this is a serious breach of trust,” said Atle Hamar, director of the gambling regulator. “Of course, it must be brutal when you receive a message that you have won a big prize, and then it is not true. This case is harmful to the trust in Norsk Tipping, and created strong reactions”.
”It is reprehensible that the error was not discovered with either testing or controls, but only after the message about the incorrect prize amount had been sent to the players,” he added, although he said he was reassured that the draw itself was carried out correctly, that the error was quickly corrected and that Norsk Tipping has implemented measures to avoid similar errors in the future.
Norsk Tipping has three weeks to respond to the notice before the regulator makes a final decision on the fine
Lottstift investigation
Lottstift said that its supervision of Norsk Tipping’s Lotto, Eurojackpot and Vikinglotto will continue. It noted other recent failures at the operator. Last year, a player was mistakenly paid NOK 25m (€2.1m) from the casino game KongKasino. Meanwhile, players using iPhones or iPads were unable to self-exclude from Norsk Tipping’s games for four months due to a technical fault that wasn’t discovered until a player reported it.
Despite calls for a harder response, Norsk Tipping’s monopoly over gambling in Norway appears to be safe for now following the Norwegian general election result. Under prime minister Jonas Gahr Støre, the Labour Party has won a second term in office. However, the populist right-wing Progress Party, which is in favour of ending the gambling monopoly in Norway, doubled its vote and came second in the poll with 48 seats.
