Thousands of Norwegians were elated on Friday evening after receiving messages informing them they had won millions in a government-run lottery, only to later discover the announcement had been sent in error.
The mistake occurred during the Eurojackpot drawing, where a currency conversion glitch caused euro cents to be converted incorrectly into Norwegian kroner. Instead of dividing by 100, the sums were multiplied by 100, inflating the reported winnings by a staggering factor of 10,000.
Following the fiasco, Tonje Sagstuen, CEO of the state-owned lottery company Norsk Tipping, announced her resignation. "I deeply regret that we disappointed so many people," Sagstuen told Norwegian media. "As CEO, it was my responsibility to handle the errors that occurred."
Culture Minister Lubna Jaffery responded sharply, summoning the company's leadership for an emergency meeting. "Our entire model is based on trust. What happened is completely unacceptable," she said.
One of the misinformed "winners," Breige Halvorsen, told Norwegian media that his partner had received a notification claiming she had won 1.2 million kroner (about $110,000). "She came over with her heart racing," he said. The couple is currently renovating an old house, and the money would have helped immensely. "When I saw that the jackpot was listed at 76 billion, I realized something was off."
This isn't Norsk Tipping's first error this year. The company has already been fined 46 million kroner for a malfunction in the national lottery, and an additional 36 million for a failure in its self-exclusion system meant for gambling addicts.
Atle Hamar, head of the national gambling authority, said the CEO's resignation was not enough to restore trust. "Trust must be rebuilt over time," he stressed.
