47,000 ‘winning’ lottery tickets in Norway turn out to be a costly conversion mistake
The state-owned gambling group apologised for mistakenly multiplying Eurojackpot winnings by 100 instead of dividing by 100 in the euro to Norwegian kroner conversion
A Norwegian lottery company on Monday apologised to 47,000 crestfallen gamblers who were mistakenly told they had won huge sums in a lottery, the firm blaming a currency conversion error.
State-owned gambling group Norsk Tipping said they had published incorrect prize amounts after a Eurojackpot draw on Friday because of an error converting from euro cents to Norwegian kroner.
The winnings had been multiplied by 100 instead of being divided by 100, the company said.
Among the disappointed was Ole Fredrik Sveen, who was on holiday in Greece when he received a message from Norsk Tipping that he had won 1.2 million kroner (US$119,000).
“I thought: ‘Wow, is it finally my turn? Could it be true?’ I go onto the Norsk Tipping website, and there it says in black and white: ‘Congratulations, you have won!’,” Sveen told public broadcaster NRK on Monday.
In reality, he had won 125 kroner (US$12).
On Monday, Sveen and the 47,000 others received apologies by text message from Norsk Tipping for the snafu.