Norway lottery operator apologises to 47,000 players over prize mixup

Ole Fredrik Sveen, 53, thought he had won 1.2m kroner when in fact he had won 125. Photograph: supplied

Norwegian lottery bosses have sent a text message apologising to tens of thousands of disappointed players who were accidentally told they had won large sums of money.

Norsk Tipping, the state-owned gambling operator, had admitted “several thousand” people were mistakenly told on Friday they had won life-changing sums of money after an error in converting from euros to Norwegian kroner. It was not until Monday, three days later, that a text message was sent to 47,000 people apologising for the error.