ASA bans Coral and BetIndex ads

Advertising watchdog ASA announced the ban of Coral Interactive and BetIndex ads after it considered they were promoting irresponsible gambling.

UK.- Gambling advertising is continuously in the crossfire of the authorities all around the world. That’s why the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has decided to ban ads from Coral Interactive and BetIndex.

The regulator considered both companies promoted irresponsible gambling with their ads. 

The ASA punished Coral over its “Bet and Get Club,” which promoted free bets from larger wagers in the previous week. “Free £5 bet every Sunday when you bet £25+ Monday to Saturday,” the ad said.

“We acknowledged that the Bet and Get Club promotion didn’t require consumers to bet every day,” the ASA explained. “However, we considered that the suggestion that viewers should ‘join’ a ’club’ in order to receive a free £5 bet ‘every’ Sunday was likely to encourage some consumers to take up the offer repetitively. For that reason, we concluded that the ad was likely to encourage gambling behaviour that was harmful and therefore breached the Code.”

BetIndex promoted a video titled “How to make money from Football Index,” which the ASA deemed irresponsible.

“We acknowledged BetIndex’s comments that consumers would recognise that the value of stock market investments went up and down and that it was expressly stated in the ad that ‘any market prices naturally go up and down’.” the ASA said. “However, we considered that the substantial discussion around how money could be generated from the platform created the impression that the product was a lucrative investment opportunity.”