Norwegian gambling regulator apologises for losing possibly hundreds of tip-offs
Lottstift has discovered that it’s online tip-off form was malfunctioning for well over a year.
Norway.- The Norwegian gambling regulator Lottstift has issued a public apology after discovering that its online form for logging tip-offs about illegal or unsafe gambling was not working properly for over a year. It’s admitted that hundreds of tip-offs reported may have been lost as a result.
The regulator said the problem was caused by a technical error that meant submissions were not saved in its achieve. It believes the issue began in March last year, and it was only detected this month. It says the form is now working correctly and has asked people who used the online form in the past 15 months to log their tip-offs again.
Lottstift does take tip-offs via other channels, including email and telephone, but its online form is the only way to make a tip-off anonymously. It said it has managed to retrieve 120 lost submissions from the last two months, but that any older submissions have already been automatically deleted for privacy reasons.
It can’t calculate exactly how many tip-offs were lost, but expects the number may be around 500 based on the usual rate of reports.
“We are concerned that we may have missed important tip-offs, and hope people will send us their tips again,” Lottstift director Atle Hamar said in a statement.
“We depend on tip-offs from the public, and people should have confidence that the tips they send will reach us,” he added. “This is a serious mistake, and it took far too long for us to discover it. Now the error is corrected, you can send us tip-offs.”
Hamar noted that most tip-offs are normally about illegal gambling, which means they play a role in helping the regulator defend Norway’s state monopoly over the sector. He said the body also receives tips related to foundations and grants to voluntary organisations.
He said the error was corrected when it was discovered and the regulator would conduct a “thorough review and make the necessary changes to prevent something similar from happening again.”
Calls for gambling liberalisation in Norway
Norway’s Progress Party recently reiterated its proposal to end Norway’s state monopoly on gambling ahead of the upcoming general election on September 8. MP Silje Hjemdal highlighted the planned gambling liberalisation in Finland as an additional impetus while again suggesting that Denmark’s regulated market should be a model.
Norway continues to allow only state-controlled Norsk Tipping and horseracing betting operator Norsk Rikstoto to offer gambling in the country. Despite the Progress Party’s stance, it still seems unlikely that this will change any time soon. The party is currently the country’s fourth largest political force in parliament. It presented gambling liberalisation as its stance ahead of the last general election in 2021 but has yet to convince sufficient MPs in other parties.
Some members of the Conservative Party, Høyre, such as Tage Pettersen, are in favour of opening the market to competition, but they have been unable to sway their party – currently Norway’s second biggest – to adopt the proposal as a manifesto pledge.
