The UK Advertising Authority has reprimanded the Health Lottery for a misleading Facebook post made in January.
The post included the statement “Up to £500K can be won every week. That’s 5 draws per week each with up to £100K jackpot.” The authority received complaints that the ad was misleading.
Lottery officials said the post was meant to highlight that five draws a week are operated, each with a top prize of “up to £100k.” The lottery has been making that claim in its ads since it began in 2011.
The authority, in its ruling, noted that no £100k jackpots have been won since February.
Prizes in society lotteries are tied to ticket sales and lottery rules with jackpot calculations also set out in their terms and conditions. The Health Lottery said in its response that the monetary amount of a prize was determined by ticket sales.
“Therefore, if five of the winning numbers were matched on a player’s ticket, the player would win a prize equivalent to 10% of total ticket sales for that draw, up to a maximum prize value of £100k,” the lottery said.
The authority, however, said that it took into account the lottery’s interpretations of the claim.
“We acknowledged that the references to the jackpots were preceded with “up to,” making it clear that the top jackpot amounts were not always available,” the ruling said. “However, we noted from the information provided by the Health Lottery that, although there had been winners of £100,000 in the past, there had been no winners of that amount since February 2015 when five weekly draws had been introduced.
“We therefore considered the claim “up to £100k” no longer represented a realistic amount that was likely to be won as a jackpot prize. We therefore concluded that the ad was misleading,” the ruling said.
The ad must not appear in its current form and the Health Lottery has also been told not to exaggerate any future winnings available.
