The Norwegian Lottery Authority (Lotteritsilsynet) has fined Norsk Tipping NOK10 million (approx €860,000) in relation to the Eurojackpot draw in June.
The draw, which took place on 27 June, led to thousands of players receiving notifications that they had won significantly higher amounts than the actual prizes awarded.
The error was caused by the use of an incorrect exchange rate between the Euro and Norwegian Korna, which led to many players being told they had won life-changing prizes.
Following the error being discovered, Norsk Tipping CEO Tonje Sagstuen resigned from her role.
In July, Lotteritsilsynet launched a full review of the operator’s most popular lottery games following a long list of errors in the past year.
Now the authority has given the state-owned operator three weeks to accept the fine or appeal the decision.
In response to the notification, acting Norsk Tipping CEO Vegar Strand emphasised that the operator has already begun extensive measures to strengthen its procedures.
“This is a violation of gambling regulations, and we take the matter very seriously. We are very sorry that we disappointed thousands of customers with incorrect information about winnings of millions.
“We are now working systematically to ensure that such mistakes do not happen again, and hope that our work will restore trust among both customers and the public. Our most important task going forward is to ensure that our games and services work as they should, and that customers can trust us.”
Strand concluded: “We will now thoroughly study the decision from the Norwegian Lottery Authority and provide our feedback within the deadline. At the same time, we will continue to work on improving the quality of our draws and services.
“Customers should be able to rest assured that we have learned from our mistakes and are doing everything we can to prevent something similar from happening again.”