ASA bans Sky Bet’s ad
The UK advertising authority ordered Sky Bet to take down a commercial for Request a Bet.
UK.- The Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) has released its most recent ruling on Wednesday, which indicates that Sky Bet must take down a commercial for its Request a Bet product, as it “gave consumers an unrealistic and exaggerated perception of the level of control they would have over the outcome of a bet.”
The ad, which was seen on August 30, 2018, promoted Sky Bet’s Request a Bet service and featured football presenter Jeff Stelling saying: “Forget ‘anything can happen’, in sport anything does happen. But could it be better? With Request a Bet it could. Spark your sports brain and roll all the possibilities into one bet. Three red cards, seven corners, five goals: let’s price that up. Or browse hundreds of request a bets on our app. The possibilities are humongous. How big is your sports noggin? Sky Bet, Britain’s most popular online bookmaker. When the fun stops, stop.”
ASA said that two complainants believed that the commercial implied that those with a good knowledge of sports were likely to experience success in their bets, and challenged whether the ad was irresponsible or not.
In regards to those complaints, Sky Bet said that the ad made no reference to knowledge increasing someone’s chances of winning and referred to the possibilities of customers building their own bet.
Nevertheless, ASA disagreed with Sky Bet’s claims and ordered the company to take down the ad as it placed strong emphasis on the role of sports knowledge in determining betting success: “We acknowledged it was the case that those with knowledge of a particular sport may be more likely to experience success when betting. However, we considered that the ad gave an erroneous perception of the extent of a gambler’s control over betting success, by placing undue emphasis on the role of sports knowledge.
“We considered that this gave consumers an unrealistic and exaggerated perception of the level of control they would have over the outcome of a bet and that could lead to irresponsible gambling behaviour. We therefore concluded that the ad breached the Code,” said ASA.
