Norsk Tipping fined NOK36m over “reprehensible” player protection violation 

The Norwegian Gambling Authority (NGA) has fined monopoly operator Norsk Tipping NOK36m (£2.6m) over player protection failings.  

The reason for the penalty was because a player was unable to ban themselves via the operator’s iOS app, a bug in the system that was said to have been present from mid-January until May 2024.

Norsk Tipping flagged the issue flagged to the regulator on 25 June 2024 and admitted the error was a violation of its own rules of play, including that customers should be able to  “lock themselves out of games”.  

A meeting between the NGA and the Hamar-based operator on 4 July revealed the issue likely occurred because of an iOS software upgrade on 16 January.  

Norsk Tipping only became aware of the problem on 20 May after being contacted by a customer, but it was corrected two days later.  

During the meeting with the NGA, Norsk Tipping argued it didn’t represent a violation of its terms and conditions around game breaks and exclusions as players had the opportunity to exclude themselves via a web version or by contacting customer support.   

The NGA requested additional information about the case on two occasions later that year, once on 25 September and again on 4 November. Norsk Tipping finally responded on 25 November.  

The regulator deemed the error to be a “significant violation” of the country’s gambling legislation and imposed a fine equivalent to 0.35% of Norsk Tipping’s revenue in 2024 (NOK10.2bn). The regulator said this was at the lower end of what can be handed down as a fine, which is up to 10% of revenue.

A statement in the NGA’s ruling said: “Protecting vulnerable players is Norsk Tipping’s most important job. This is also in many ways the very backbone of the Norwegian gambling model.  

“The Norwegian Gambling Authority therefore believes that when a large number of customers have not had the opportunity to lock themselves out via the native app (iOS) for a period of more than four months, this is a significant violation of the Gambling Act.  

The regulator determined that around 240 players would have been affected by the self-exclusion error.  

This calculation was based on the average of 180 customers per month who blocked themselves from all Norsk Tipping games in 2023.  

In the four months between the app update and the error being discovered, the average dropped to 120 customers a month, the regulator said. Therefore, it was determined approximately 60 players per month were unable to self-exclude during the four months where the issue persisted.  

The statement continued: “Although the figures are uncertain and other factors may also play a role, there is still no other explanation for the significant decline in the period.  

“It is disturbing that Norsk Tipping has not had a system in place to capture this type of development, so that the error could have been discovered and corrected at a much earlier time. 

“We believe that the offence was not committed intentionally. However, we believe that the requirement for negligence is met, as Norsk Tipping has not acted in accordance with responsible conduct based on their knowledge of the regulations and the requirement that players should be able to easily exclude themselves from gambling.  

“Norsk Tipping has not provided sufficient testing and control of such a central accountability tool as being able to exclude themselves from gambling, functioned after the IOS update on January 16, 2024. This is reprehensible.” 

Back in January, Norsk Tipping announced the lowering of the maximum loss caps for online players between the ages of 20 and 24, which came into effect on 1 February.  

The change means 20- and 21-year-olds are prevented from incurring losses of more than NOK3,000 (£340) per month. For those aged 22 to 24, the new cap is set at NOK5,000.