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The Norwegian gambling regulator has ordered exclusive rights holders Norsk Tipping to pay a fee of NK4.5m (€382,521) after mistakenly paying a player NK25m, well above the NK5m jackpot limit.
Atle Hamar, director of the Norwegian Lottery Authority (NLA), called the mistaken payment a “serious breach" and a “serious system failure”.
“This is a big wrongful payment. There is a relatively high chance that the money could have gone to a player with a gambling problem or at risk of getting it. Then those involved would have had a lot to play for,” Hamar wrote in a post published on September 27.
Norsk Tipping has subsequently introduced measures in response to the findings, which Hamar said has been taken into account when assessing the fee.
A Norsk Tipping spokesperson said it agrees with the regulator that “the incorrect payment is a serious incident, for which we take full responsibility”.
“We will now use the time until the deadline for a thorough review of the decision, and assess whether we should accept or appeal the fee,” Norsk Tipping told Vixio GamblingCompliance.
The error was discovered when the winning Kongkasino player notified Norsk Tipping, which is owned by the Norwegian government and run by the Norwegian Ministry of Culture, in March 2024 and paid back the winnings.
Norsk Tipping then gathered information on the case and told the regulator that the incorrect payment was due to a difficult-to-predict unexpected error.
Shortly after, the NLA announced it was considering fining NK4.5m, or approximately 0.05 percent of Norsk Tuipping’s turnover.
In July, the NLA sent a notice of infringement fees and received comments from Norsk Tipping that did not change its view.
Norsk Tipping has been given three weeks to appeal the decision.
