Lottery winner loses out on millions after mix-up

A 32-year-old woman in Sweden recently lost out on winning a share of 80.5 million kronor ($11.7 million) due to the Swedish Tax Agency (Skatteverket) having her registered at the wrong address.

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“It’s a nightmare, I have not slept for a week,” said winner Linda Nyqvist to daily newspaper Expressen.

Nyqvist recently changed her address when she moved to Hjo, in central Sweden, in April last year.

In December it was announced that the residents of Hjo had won 80.5 million kronor in the Swedish Post Code Lottery (Postkodslotteriet), giving dividends to eight people in the village.

“I saw the headlines in the press saying we had won and my heart started beating harder. But nobody had called me,” she told Expressen.

The reason as to why nobody had rung Nyqvist emerged when she called the administrators of the lottery who explained that she was in fact not registered with the tax agency at her current address.

The address change had been made accordingly on April 8th, but somehow the details never reached the tax office and had been, somewhat ironically, lost in the post.

“Something went wrong, but I don’t know how and cannot find out either. The forms have been lost either at the post office or at the tax office. It is awful,” Nyqvist told the paper.

And according to the agency they have not received a request for a change of address, and the department that deals with registering new addresses claim Nyqvist has been registered at her old address all the time.

“There's nothing I can say or do,” Ingegerd Widell, an administration officer at the tax agency, told the newspaper.

The administrators at the post code lottery say that Nyqvist is not considered a winner since she does not officially live at her current address.

“It is of course disappointing when you think you have won but realise that you haven’t after all. It is clear from our perspective that the draw has been made and there is nothing we can do to change it,” says Fredrik Skärheden, administrator at the post code lottery, to Expressen.

“I can only live in hope that the error will be corrected,” said Nyqvist.

The Swedish post code lottery is built up around the idea that if one person buys a ticket and wins, all those who have also bought tickets and who share the same postcode as the winner, also win a stake in the dividends.