The British self-regulatory organisation, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), announced today its ruling on several investigated gambling-related advertisements by TVBet, a B2B provider of live-games for online sports betting and casino sites. The regulatory watchdog investigated the ads after receiving a signal from the Lithuania-based supplier of live dealer games, BetGames.tv. The complaint was upheld by the ASA.
The ads in question were shown at an SBC trade show that took place at the Kensington Olympia exhibition center in September 2019. The ads appeared both on a media screen and in print, claiming that TVBet offers the “Biggest Jackpots” and is the “#1 World’s Live-Games Provider”.
BetGames took issue with this wording, claiming both statements were misleading. The Lithuanian supplier challenged whether these claims were substantiated and verifiable. TVBet disputed the accusations and said in response that the statements were not misleading because it had been indeed ranked as a leader in a list of live-games suppliers.
According to the supplier, this information was readily available on the gambling news portal logincasino.org. Nevertheless, the supplier said it would refrain from using such wording in its future ads.
The Claims in the Ads Were Not Based on Sufficient and Verifiable Evidence
After assessing the complaint and the related advertisements, the regulatory watchdog determined TVBet’s claims were indeed unsubstantiated and in violation of the advertising code. In today’s statement, the ASA explained that the wording “The Biggest Jackpot” was misleading because it implies the operator offers the largest jackpot payouts across its entire gaming suite compared to the rest of the live-games suppliers.
The regulator proceeded to state that the “#1 World’s Live-Games Provider” claim was based on a ranking by the gambling-related portal www.logincasino.com. TVBet topped the list outranking four other providers. It was also suggested that the company’s jackpots had “no limit (€1 trillion or more)”. However, it was not clear what evidence and figures the bold claim was based on, the ASA said.
Moreover, the gambling portal in question offered figures for a limited number of gaming suppliers without explaining the reasons why they had been picked in the first place. According to the ASA, the available information and figures were not sufficient to back the jackpot claims of TVBet.
Businesses Consider Many Factors when Choosing a Supplier, the ASA Said
When choosing a supplier, gambling businesses took into consideration a variety of factors, not only the size of the available jackpots, the ASA said. The same applies to online rankings because each gambling-content portal considers different factors when selecting the best gambling sites.
Furthermore, BetGames.tv had come across several different gaming portals that did not include TVBet on their lists of best live-games suppliers. The ASA considers the claim “#1 World’s Live-Games Provider” inappropriate because it might lead some gambling businesses to the conclusion the statement means that TVBet’s gaming suite is the best-selling on the market.
The ASA ruled out both phrases used in the ads are inappropriate and violated the CAP advertising code due to lack of substantial evidence, based on verifiable figures. The regulator ordered TVBet not to show the ads in their current form and welcomed the supplier’s assurance it would no longer use such phrasing when promoting its products in the future.
- Author
Daniel Williams
