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Read Full BioNorsk Tipping, Norway’s state-owned gambling operator, has been fined NOK 46 million ($4.6 million) over errors that led to players in cooperatives having a greater chance of winning.
The errors went as far back as 2015 and persisted until this year. The Norwegian Lottery and Foundation Authority (Lottstift) claimed the operator was aware of the errors in November last year, but did not investigate further or rectify the issue.
Speaking to Norwegian News Agency, NTB, Anne Marit Sletten, Head of Press and Community Relations at Norsk Tipping, denied this claim, stating: “That does not reflect what we understand occurred.” However, she accepted the fine and that the error had been present.
The error meant that users playing the lotteries alone have had a lower chance of winning for the past 10 years.
Norsk Tipping Heavily Criticized For Latest Failure
Atle Hamar, director of Lottstift, said: “Players should be able to trust that Norsk Tipping’s games are safe and fair. The error itself is serious, and it is aggravating that it was not discovered until many years had passed.”
Hamar went on to further criticize the company, which holds exclusive rights to gambling in Norway. He added: “With the market position Norsk Tipping has, one can expect that such errors will be discovered and corrected immediately.”
“This is careless and the threshold for investigating possible errors has been too high,” Hamar went on to say.
Sletten admitted the company had failed the public, saying: “There is no doubt that we deserve the criticism we’ve received.”
False Notices and Excessive Payouts
It is the latest in a series of errors from the operator. In July, an error led to over 47,000 players being notified that they had won amounts far exceeding their actual prizes.
Norsk Tipping CEO Tonje Sagstuen resigned a day after the error and apologised for the damage caused. An investigation found that the error broke the law, but as yet, no formal repercussions have been issued. The matter is still under review, and a fine may be issued at a later date.
As a result of this year’s error, no players actually received incorrect prizes. However, in 2023, an error led to excessive prize payout due to a bug at Norsk Tipping’s online casino platform KongKasino.
Norway restricts the maximum payout to NOK 100,000, but the platform paid out NOK 25 million ($1.5 million). As a result, Norsk Tipping was fined NOK 4.5 million.
Self-Exclusion Failures and Minors Gambling
Additionally, the operator was fined NOK 36 million ($3.6 million) for failures with its self-exclusion tool. A technical fault meant that users were unable to self-exclude from January to May last year.
Although alternative means of self-exclusion existed, Lottstift deemed these insufficient, especially for vulnerable users. Norsk Tipping accepted the fine and said it has updated its systems to prevent future errors.
However, the company has also been accused of allowing minors to gamble on its platforms. In May, Lottstift received a tip from a bank that a large sum of money had been transferred from a minor under the age of 18 to Norsk Tipping.
The regulator said it has received 21 similar tips since January last year.
“There is little doubt that Norsk Tipping will have to accept sanctions when such extensive errors are revealed. The most important thing for us now is to clean up the mess”, said former CEO Sagstuen. She then departed with six months of severance pay.
