Imagine you won a million kroner on the lottery only to find out it was a mistake and all the money must be returned, by which time you’d already spent part of it. Sounds like the premise for a new movie combining the Nicolas Cage flicks ‘It could happen to you’ and ‘Leaving Las Vegas’.
Unfortunately this very thing happened to Kay-Ulrich Olsen, a Danish pensioner who bought his winning ticket at the beginning of July.
“It was like a rollercoaster ride and very surreal,” Olsen told TV2 News about how he first felt when he learnt about his fortune.
Invited family to Tivoli
Olsen wasted little time in spending some of his winnings on paying bills, buying a new pair of shoes and a bicycle, and taking the whole family, grandchildren and all, to Tivoli.
But on the way there, the rollercoaster stopped mid-ride.
Olsen received a phone call from the national lottery company, Danske Spil, which told him that a mistake had occurred and he should return all the money. (In the film version, this is the scene in which Nicolas Cage quickly grabs all the ice creams back from his grandchildren.)
READ MORE: Danske Spil giveth and Danske Spil taketh away
A summer mistake
But when TV2 asked Danske Spil about Olsen’s case, the company quickly relented, informing the lucky winner he can keep the money after all.
“Seeing that he has had the money in his possession for two weeks, we believe it is fair he keeps the money ex gratia,” explained Thomas Rørsig, the communications manager at Danske Spil, blaming the error on the summer holidays.
Another Dane who also won a million kroner by mistake has also been allowed to keep his winnings.
