Man Wrongly Told He Won Nearly $130,000, but Then Lottery Company Said They Made a Mistake: ‘Crushing Disappointment’

A man was told he won nearly $130,000 in the lottery, only to be informed that it was all a big mistake.

Ole Fredrik Sveen of Kløfta, Norway, recently told his story to The Guardian in a profile on his experience. In the piece, Sveen said that he had always dreamed of winning the lottery, and he often played every few weeks even though he never won more than a few dollars.

But his luck seemed to change this past summer.

“In June, I was on holiday in Greece with my girlfriend. We’d had the most amazing day and were watching the sunset with a glass of wine. Earlier in the day, we had discussed buying a holiday home there. ‘I’d need to win the lottery first!’ I joked,” he told the outlet.

He went on to say that “suddenly” his phone buzzed, and he saw that he had received a text from Norsk Tipping, the Norwegian lottery corporation. The text informed Sveen that he had won the Eurojackpot. 

“My hands were starting to shake as I logged into the app and saw a notification saying I had won $128,360,” he recalled.

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Sveen said that his “heart skipped a beat” and he became “light headed” with the news. He recalled that his mind began to “spin with possibilities,” and he even called his mom and excitedly told her he had won.

However, Sveen said that he soon began to feel “that something wasn’t right.”

“I checked the winning numbers and compared them with mine. I’d only matched two main numbers and one bonus number. My heart dropped to the pit of my stomach. There was no way I could have won so much money,” he explained.

He said by that point, a number of news stories about the major error had already begun to circulate online. He learned that the lotto company had wrongly informed thousands of people that they had won the jackpot.

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“It was a crushing disappointment,” he recalled. “The holidays, the plans I’d made in my head all disappeared. I had to call my mom and tell her I hadn’t actually won any money. My girlfriend broke down in tears.”

“The rest of the evening felt very subdued,” he added. “We were both drained. You can’t miss what you never had, but we felt so angry they could get people’s hopes up like that. The next day, I was even more annoyed that nobody from Norsk Tipping had been in touch to confirm we hadn’t won and apologize. It was two or three days before we were able to stop thinking about what could have been. It took the shine off what had been a wonderful holiday.”

Sveen said that he didn’t receive any formal communication about the error from Norsk Tipping until several days later.

“I’m glad I had my wits about me and realized quite quickly there was an error, because if I thought I’d won for a whole weekend, I might have already spent a lot of money,” he continued, adding that “getting the confirmation in writing felt like the first blow all over again.”

Sveen says he no longer plays the lottery as it feels “tainted” for him now, though he noted that he continues to try to focus on the positives in his life.

Norsk Tipping formally apologized for the error in a statement shared on their website on June 27, citing a “manual error” that caused the prize amounts to be multiplied by 100 instead of divided by 100.

“Norsk Tipping sincerely apologizes to everyone who was notified of an incorrect prize amount,” they added

PEOPLE reached out to Norsk Tipping for comment on Friday, Dec. 19, but did not receive an immediate response.