A presenter of BBC Sport has been warned over the alleged promotion of a sports betting operator on social media without openly acknowledging that she has a commercial relationship with the bookmaker. The presenter also continued to do so after being warned that she was violating advertising rules.
The Olympic hockey gold medallist Sam Quek is a paid ambassador for Footie5, which is a gambling prediction game on a weekly basis that provides customers with the chance to wager on matches. Last year, Ms Quek started using her Twitter account for posting information about the above-mentioned game without revealing her relationship with the bookmaker in any way. Footie5 is available for adult customers but, for the time being, it is not clear how many of Ms Quek’s followers on the social network are individuals under the age of 18.
In the months before the Christmas holidays, the 31-year-old BBC Sport presenter posted multiple Tweets regarding Footie5 and even posted some links to the sports betting operator’s official Twitter page. The Tweets were liked, shared and commented by dozens of people.
Once he saw the posts on Twitter, the blogger and better gambling regulation campaigner Alex May filed a complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). Currently, under the existing rules of the regulator, all celebrities and social media influencers’ marketing communications should be identifiable as such. Also, influencers and celebrities should bring the information they are engaging with advertising to the knowledge of their followers and mark sponsored posts as such.
Sam Quek Receives Two “Advice Notes” from the ASA Regarding the Bookmaker’s Ads
The ASA decided to deal with the complaint against Ms Quek informally and sent her an advice note reminding her of the requirements she was supposed to be in line with.
However, earlier in 2020, the BBC star decided to ignore these recommendations and posted another Tweet regarding Footie5’s game, once again without indicating that the post was an advert. Then, another complaint was filed to the ASA by Mr May, and the watchdog got in contact with Ms Quek to remind her of the rules she was supposed not to breach.
Currently, the particular Tweet that fuelled the controversy and prompted the second complaint seems to have been removed but, still, a few other posts about Footie5 remain on Ms Quek’s account timeline. According to the complainant, there were repeated failures on Ms Quek’s part to inform her followers on the social network that the posts in question were adverts. According to Mr May, she should not be a gambling brand ambassador and should not promote gambling services in the first place.
As revealed by Mr May, the BBC presenter seemed to have stopped posting Tweets about Footie5 since the cancellation of all major football matches due to the coronavirus outbreak. He also shared hopes that she would stop doing that once and for all, regardless there are any football matches available to bet on or not.
- Author
Daniel Williams
