The advertising regulator of the UK – the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) – has today published two rulings against gambling operators as part of its efforts to prevent gambling companies from targeting under-aged individuals.
For some time now, some local authorities, anti-gambling operators and charity organisations have been raising a red flag about the possible negative influence that gambling advertising could have on children and more vulnerable people. This is exactly why competent authorities have joined efforts to prevent minors from being targeted by gambling operators and reduce the accessibility of their advertising campaigns to under-aged individuals.
William Hill Scolded by Advertising Regulator
The ASA upheld one complaint against William Hill Group Ltd after an ad for William Hill Vegas was challenged for being inappropriately aimed at children. The ad offering a bonus for all William Hill Vegas online games was seen by the complainant on February 17th 2018 within the New MarioKart 8 Trick application which targets under-aged individuals as its major audience.
WGH responded to the complaint, saying that the company would never knowingly target any individuals under the age of 18 and it was never their intention to advertise gambling products and promotions to such people. The company noted that they had chosen to use Google’s Universal App Campaign product, which was launched across a number of networks and applications on the Internet, and explained that they had been unable to specify any other parameters for the ads apart from the location.
In addition, sharing the mobile devices between adults and children was something the operator was unable to do, so WHG could not guarantee that gambling advertisements would not be occasionally displayed to people under the age of 18. The gambling operator also explained that they were working in collaboration with children’s publishers to further reduce the risks of minors getting access to their gambling adverts.
The application developer – Honocoroko – did not respond to the enquiries made by the Advertising Standards Authority.
The ASA has investigated on the complaint against William Hill Vegas. The advertising regulatory body explained that marketing communications for gambling must not be directed to children under the age of 18 in any way and noted that marketers should be able to make sure they had taken all the necessary steps to make sure this did not happen.
As explained by the ASA, the new MarioKart 8 Trick application had a PEGI rating 3, under which it is considered suitable for all audiences, children included. Despite that, however, the gambling ad had appeared in the app which was inappropriate considering the application is seen as children’s media, i.e. a media which is more likely to attract an audience of under-18s.
The UK advertising regulatory body upheld the complaint, as it found the advert breached CAP Code rules 16.1 and 16.3.13 regarding gambling. ASA ruled that the advert must not be used again to target under-aged individuals and instructed that gambling operator to make sure their ads were appropriately targeted from now on.
Greentube Alderney Targeted Children through Gambling Ad
Greentube Alderney also faced ASA backlash for inappropriately displaying gambling adverts to children.
An in-app advertisement for Bell Fruit Casino was seen by the complainant on February 21st 2018 in the Dude Perfect 2 application. The complainant challenged the ad after the latter was seen by their 7-year-old son.
The company responded to the complaint, explaining that it had used the Google network to publish the ad and had previously been assured by Google that the advert would only be displayed only in case that the user was known to be over 18 years of age. On the other hand, the publishers of the Dude Perfect 2 app – Miniclip SA – claimed that they suspended gambling adverts from being displayed in the application. At the time when the ad was seen by the complainant’s son, they had already enacted that option.
The advertising regulatory body investigated on the situated and found that rules 16.1 and 16.3.13 from the CAP Code were breached. According to ASA, gambling operators should be able to demonstrate that they had taken all reasonable measures to make sure that gambling ads would not be accessed by children.
The Advertising Standards Authority also reminded that age-restricted adverts displayed on online platforms should not only be targeted on age data, because many under-aged individuals deliberately lie about their age on social media, and several people may also share the same device. The conclusion of the regulatory body was that the ad had been inappropriately displayed and breached the Code, so it must not be used again without further measures to prevent children from seeing it.
- Author
Olivia Cole
