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Norsk Tipping chief quits after Eurojackpot debacle

| By Richard Mulligan
Chief Executive Tonje Sagstuen quits after thousands of players were incorrectly told they had won life-changing sums.

Norsk Tipping’s chief executive has resigned after the gambling operator published incorrect prize amounts after Friday’s Eurojackpot draw.

Tonje Sagstuen (pictured) quit her role on Saturday, after thousands of customers were given false expectations that they had won larger amounts of money. A human error caused the stated premium amount to be 10,000 times too high, directly affecting over 41,000 Norwegians. Around 16,000 of them received push notifications with the erroneous figure on their phones.

The monopoly has since issued a public apology and contacted players individually. Some players had already made plans for holidays, buying an apartment or renovating before they were made aware of the mistake.

Vegar Strand, acting CEO, Norsk Tipping
Vegar Strand steps into the CEO role at a time when trust in Norway’s gambling monopoly has been ‘broken’

Vegar Strand, who has been director of strategy, analysis and business development, has been appointed acting CEO to replace Sagstuen.

Sagstuen said in a statement: “As a manager, it has been my responsibility to handle the errors that have occurred, and it has been very gratifying to see how a united Norsk Tipping has responded to the challenges and worked day and night to solve them.”

Minister of culture takes aim at Norsk Tipping

Norsk Tipping said a calculation error occurred when converting from euro cents to Norwegian kroner. It said that the error was discovered after a short time.

The business is currently conducting a comprehensive review of its systems to ensure that similar errors do not occur again.

The minister of culture, the Norwegian Gambling Authority and individual customers have criticised the business for the high-profile error.

Norway’s minister of culture, Lubna Jaffery, said: “We take note of Tonje Sagstuen’s departure. As I have said, Norsk Tipping is completely dependent on having the trust of the people. The exclusive model depends on that. The ministry will continue to follow up with the board, such mistakes should not happen and we expect the board to work actively to improve control routines.”

Acting CEO issues apology

Acting CEO Strand said: “We have greatly disappointed our customers and take full responsibility for cleaning up. Such mistakes are serious for a company that is supposed to manage the trust of Norwegians.

“The work of rebuilding trust has the highest priority going forward.”

In the apology sent to customers, Strand expressed his understanding that customers are disappointed.

“On Friday evening, thousands of Norwegians were mistakenly told that they had won a large prize in Eurojackpot. This was an error that affected many and which we take very seriously.

“We deeply regret what has happened and, on behalf of us at Norsk Tipping, I would like to apologise to everyone who was affected by this. We are incredibly sorry to have disappointed so many. 

“Know that we are now working intensively to ensure that this type of error does not happen again.”

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