.svg)
Norway's gambling monopoly Norsk Tipping could be fined as much as 36m krone (€3m) for a four-month black hole in its self-exclusion service.
The Norwegian Lottery Authority announced on Friday (February 14) that it intends to levy a sizable fine on Norway’s state-owned operator in response to a massive self-exclusion oversight in early 2024.
From January to May 2024 users of Norsk Tipping’s app on Apple devices were unable to block themselves from gambling, the regulator said.
The software glitch, which has been confirmed by the operator, was not noticed until a player who had attempted to exclude themselves contacted Norsk Tipping and the regulator to report the problem.
The state-owned operator said it fixed the error immediately, which it traced back to an iOS update on January 16, 2024. It then reported itself to the regulator in June.
Reaching an initial enforcement decision on Friday, the authority said it planned to issue a fine of 36m krone, which represents 0.35 percent of Norsk Tipping’s revenue of 10.2bn krone (€876m) in 2024.
There is no way to know exactly how many at-risk gamblers were denied exclusion during this period, but the regulator noted that around 240 people blocked themselves from gambling during the same period in 2023 and that there had been a noticeable drop for the same period in 2024, during which the glitch went undetected.
“The fact that the exclusion has not worked is a clear violation of the law,” said Tore Bell, a department director at the lottery authority.
“It is clear that the threshold for exclusion is higher if you have to call the customer service centre or log in to the computer to do it,” he added.
“Both the fact that the error occurs and that it is not detected is a serious failure in systems and routines,” said Bell.
Norsk Tipping has three weeks to respond to the proposed fine before the regulator makes a final decision.
“We agree with the Norwegian Gambling Authority that this is a serious matter, and will accept the fine,” said Norsk Tipping CEO Tonje Sagstuen.
The fine comes in the wake of a series of lottery mishaps for Norsk Tipping, at a time when the political vulnerability of the monopoly is rising.
Advocates for reform are pushing for Norway to transition to a market that allows open licensing for gambling, pointing to neighbouring Finland’s recent decision to abandon its monopoly.
In admitting to the fine, Norsk Tipping’s chief executive took the opportunity to attempt to defend her company’s privileged position.
“We report serious deviations even if it may result in reactions from the authority. This is how the exclusive model works, with a strong supervisory authority that has a wide range of sanctioning options. This has given us the world's most responsible gambling regulation,” said Sagstuen.
“This is a serious mistake that should not happen, and something we must learn from to avoid something like this happening again.
“That is why we have, among other things, introduced new and better monitoring routines. Norsk Tipping's main task is to prevent problem gambling, and the pause and exclusion tools should always be easily accessible to all our customers,” she added.
