Key points:
- A technical error in the Norwegian Lottery Authority’s tip form has deleted a number of public submissions
- The issue persisted from March 2024 until June 2025 and affected anonymous tips submitted through an online form
- The Authority has urged the public to resubmit important tips, particularly those relating to illegal gambling
The Norwegian Lottery and Foundations Authority has disclosed a technical error that may have resulted in the loss of hundreds of public tips, primarily concerning illegal gambling activity.
The issue, which affected the Authority’s tip submission form, persisted unnoticed from March 2024 until its discovery in June 2025.
Director Atle Hamar expressed concern over the failure, noting the importance of public tips to the agency’s oversight work.
"This is a serious mistake, and it took far too long for us to discover it," Hamar stated. “We rely on tips from the public, and people should have confidence that the tips they send will reach us.”
The tip form in question allowed users to submit reports anonymously. While the Authority continued to receive information via other channels such as email and telephone, form submissions were neither received nor acknowledged – leading to potential data loss without the sender's knowledge.
Although the system has since been repaired, only around 120 tips from the past two months could be recovered due to privacy protocols that led to the automatic deletion of older submissions.
Good to know: It is estimated that as many as 500 tips may have been lost
The Authority has pledged to thoroughly review the failure and introduce additional safeguards to ensure similar incidents do not recur.
The oversight body is urging the public to resubmit any previously submitted tips, particularly if they relate to illegal gambling, foundations or misuse of grants.
This disclosure follows earlier warnings issued by the Authority to Norwegian media, cautioning against unintentionally promoting illegal gambling operations during major televised events such as Eurovision and sporting tournaments.
