Letou Sports Betting & Online Casino, which is the shirt sponsor of Swansea City, has been investigated for using cartoons in their casino games’ promotional campaigns. The investigation has been started after the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) received a complaint from the Campaign for Fairer Gambling, claiming that Letou’s advertising campaign could encourage children to gamble.
Representatives of the Campaign for Fairer Gambling reached the advertising regulatory authority, calling it to remove the operator’s commercials for games which were likely to be found attractive to young individuals under the age of 17. According to the complaint filed to the Advertising Standards Authority, Letou used a character called “Santa Paws” in its adverts on January 3rd 2018.
At the time when the complaint was filed to the ASA, the Campaign for Fairer Gambling illustrated the problem by sending an image from the Isle of Man-based company’s website. The picture featured a cartoon polar bear, which was dressed as Santa Claus. In addition, a number of other cartoon images used in the website of Letou were sent along with the complaint to the UK gambling advertising regulator.
A spokesman for the Campaign for Fairer Gambling shared that using cartons in gambling advertising campaigns increases the risk of children becoming addicted to gambling. What is worse, campaigners claim that such adverts could make gambling and betting activities look normal to children, who are traditionally more susceptible to advertising. According to the Campaign for Fairer Gambling, football clubs need to be careful when it comes to promoting gambling operators on their websites, as more vulnerable individuals could be affected by possible negative consequences.
Eventually, Swansea City have removed references to their shirt sponsor from the Junior Jacks section on their website. However, links to the shirt sponsor’s website and the one of the online gambling operator bet365 still remain on football club’s official page.
More Children Reach Gambling Advertising Freely
Lately, thousands of children have still been able to purchase and wear football shirts which feature ads of gambling operators, in spite of the promise of local operators and authorities to keep such companies’ logos away from the young people’s reach.
As Casino Guardian reported earlier, nine Premier League’s junior teams that have been sponsored by gambling operators do not display the betting firms’ logos on their shirts under a special agreement reached by the gambling sector and the clubs. However, one way or another, young people are still able to purchase shirts featuring gambling operators’ logos and ads for the time being.
The problem has become one of the most-discussed topics in the country over the past few years, as market studies showed that industry practices and codes were not very effective when it comes to preventing children from reaching such advertising, materials or services.
- Author
Olivia Cole
