Norwegian Lottery Apologizes After Thousands Mistakenly Told They Won Big Eurojackpot Prizes
Norway’s national lottery, Norsk Tipping, has issued a public apology after a coding error led to thousands of players being mistakenly informed they had won massive sums in the Eurojackpot lottery. The error occurred during the conversion of prize amounts from euros to Norwegian kroner. Instead of dividing the amounts by 100, the system multiplied them—artificially inflating the winnings by a factor of 10,000. Push notifications and messages were sent out to customers with the incorrect figures, causing widespread excitement before the company issued a correction. “Norsk Tipping sincerely apologizes to everyone who was notified of an incorrect prize amount,” the company said in a statement. The mistake was attributed to a “manual coding error,” though the company confirmed that no customers were paid out the incorrect amounts. In a follow-up statement, CEO Tonje Sagstuen expressed personal regret: “I am terribly sorry that we have disappointed so many, and I understand that peop...