Today, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) issued a ruling against an online promotion of Ladbrokes Betting and Gaming Ltd and banned it from being posted again. The UK-based regulatory watchdog explained that the advertisement used by the betting and gambling operator was misleading to customers and the company should not use it in its current form from now on.
According to the ruling of the Authority published on its official website, the claims of Ladbrokes that could be found in an online promotion uploaded on their News microsite on June 16th 2016 is misleading. The advert is especially aimed at new customers and claimed they could be granted with “incredible odds” on an then-coming clash between England and Wales as part of the Euro 2016 championship.
Under the terms published on Ladbrokes News website, new customers are required to “pick a side” and create an account with the company, after which they would be able to reach a variety of huge odds on the Group B encounter. Every customer could made one bet only, and the maximum bet allowed amounted to £10. The advert’s text also read that customers would be returned their stakes as a free bet in case of a losing selection.
The person who filed the complaint claimed that the online promotion was misleading to customers as there was no information that part of the player’s winnings generated from a bet would be paid in Free Bet tokens.
Ladbrokes responded to the complaint and admitted that the text of the promotion did not make it precisely clear how the eventual winnings of customers would be paid out. However, the operator said that the link to the promotion’s full Terms and Conditions was included in the advert’s text, and the term in question was present there. In addition, the company explained that customers are required to thoroughly read the Terms and Conditions before taking up the offer.
Moreover, Ladbrokes revealed that the team that is responsible for content writing and publishing on their News microsite had been recommended to make sure that all important details related to adverts and promotions would be included in any upcoming content.
The Advertising Standards Authority upheld the complaint against the promotional offer and said that customers were likely to interpret the text in a wrong way. The watchdog confirmed that the promotion’s full Terms and Conditions clearly stated that the extra winnings would be paid in free Bet Tokens, but it still found that the ad’s text could mislead the company’s customers.
According to the regulatory ruling, the advert breached CAP Code rule 8.17 concerning the significant promotional marketing conditions and commanded Ladbrokes to make sure the ad does not appear again in its current form. It also recommended the operator to be more careful with similar promotional offers in the future.
- Author
Daniel Williams
