The UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has ordered the removal of a Facebook ad for a gambling app that starred young football players Raheem Sterling, Jadon Sancho and Kylian Mbappé.
The ASA upheld a complaint against Football Index, a Jersey-based website that allows users to trade virtual shares in players on a platform modeled on the stock market, according to Rob Davies, of ExecReview.com.
According to Davies, the advertisement offered users the chance of “handsome profits” if they traded shares in 19-year-old Sancho, who plays for the German team Borussia Dortmund. The ad also featured 18-year-old Callum Hudson-Odoi of Chelsea, 20-year-old Marcus Rashford of Manchester United, 24-year-old Sterling of Manchester City’s and 20-year-old French World Cup winner Mbappé, who plays for Paris Saint-Germain.
The code governing non-broadcast advertising spells out that no one under age 25 may be depicted gambling in an advertisement or playing a significant role in a gambling ad unless the ad is displayed in a place where a bet can be made, such as a bookmaker’s premises or website. Football Index was told not do it again.
Football Index Marketing Director Mike Bohan told Davies, “We have reviewed our marketing practices to ensure they are compliant with the advertising regulations and accurately represent Football Index’s socially responsible platform. We now consider the matter closed.”
On August 20, a report by the think tank Demos said advertising regulations are routinely flouted on social media, exposing thousands of teens under the age of 16 to gambling messages. For example, Derby County tied up with the online casino 32Red, under which the former England forward Wayne Rooney will wear the number 32 on his shirt this season.
Betting companies agreed this year to a voluntary ban on advertising during televised sports in response to public concerns about the effect of wall-to-wall gambling promotions on kids, particularly on weekends when football is shown. However, half of Premier League teams still promote gambling companies on their jerseys.
Researchers at Demos and the University of Bristol analyzed more than 880,000 tweets and raised particular concern about eSports and competitive video games such as Fortnite. The report found that 28 percent of retweets or replies to gambling tweets about eSports were posted by children under 16. It said 74 percent of eSports tweets and 68 percent of traditional sports tweets appeared not to comply with advertising regulations.
Professor Agnes Nairn of the University of Bristol says parents are often unaware that their children are being bombarded with gambling promotions.
“Our analysis of the content of gambling advertising tweets leads us to believe that children’s eSports gambling is currently under the radar in two ways: it’s online, where parents won’t see it, and it’s using clever content marketing such as amusing gifs, memes, pictures and funny stories, designed to appeal to and implicitly influence young people,” Nairn told Davies.
The report called on technology companies to make better use of age verification tools and screening technology to block children from seeing these ads.
