47,000 ‘winning’ lottery tickets turn out to be a costly conversion mistake!
Published: Jul 2025
A Norwegian lottery company had to apologise to 47,000 crestfallen gamblers who were mistakenly told they had won huge sums in a lottery. The company blaming a currency conversion error.
The State-owned group Norsk Tipping, said they had published incorrect prize amounts after a Euro jackpot draw because of an error converting from Euro cents to Norwegian kroner.
Instead of being divided by 100, the winnings had been multiplied by 100, the company said.
Ole Fredrik Sveen, was amongst the disappointed players and 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!’,” said Sveen.
In reality, he had won 125 kroner (US$12)!
Sveen and the 47,000 others received apologies by text message from Norsk Tipping for the confusion.
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