Norwegian lotto mistakenly told thousands they were filthy rich after math error

Oh, you have to divide by 100?

Thousands of Norwegians mistakenly thought they'd won life-changing sums in last week's Eurojackpot after a manual coding slip at state-owned operator Norsk Tipping.

Eurojackpot, a pan-European lottery launched in 2012, holds two draws per week, and its jackpots start at €10 million (about $12 million) with a rollover cap of €120 million ($141 million).

Norsk Tipping, Norway's Eurojackpot administrator, admitted on Friday that a "manual error" it its conversion process from Eurocents to Norwegian kroner multiplied amounts by 100 instead of dividing them.

As a result, "thousands" of players were briefly shown jackpots far higher than their actual winnings before the mistake was caught, but no incorrect payouts were made.

Norsk Tipping didn't disclose how large the false jackpots were, but math suggests the improper amounts were 10,000x times higher. Regardless, it seems like a lot of people thought they were big winners, based on what the company's now-former CEO, Tonje Sagstuen, said on Saturday. 

"I have received many messages from people who had managed to make plans for holidays, buying an apartment or renovating before they realized that the amount was wrong," Sagstuen said in a statement. "To them I can only say: Sorry!"

The incorrect prize amounts were visible on the Norsk Tipping website only briefly on Friday, but the CEO still resigned over the weekend following the incident. 

While one of the Norsk Tipping press releases regarding the incident described it as "not a technical error," it still appears someone fat-fingered a bit of data entry. The company said it will nonetheless be investigating how such a mistake could have happened "to prevent something similar from happening again."

This isn't the first time Norsk Tipping has been in hot water of late, with the lotto authority even admitting in one of its own press statements released over the weekend that "several serious errors have been uncovered in the company in recent months, and Friday's incident comes on top of these."

Along with this past weekend's jackpot chaos, an April error between Norsk Tipping's customer base and gaming engine led to delays in confirming winners. In February, the Norwegian Gambling Authority proposed a fine for failures in Norsk Tipping's self-exclusion tool that violated responsible gambling regulations. 

The new acting CEO of the organization, Vegar Strand, intends to use his time at the helm to rebuild trust in the Norsk Tipping after those issues.

"We have greatly disappointed our customers, and take full responsibility for cleaning up," Strand said, calling criticism of the firm by Norwegian officials justified. ®