ASA overturns Sky Bet advert ban
The advertising authority ASA has reversed a previous ruling that banned a Sky Bet ad promoting its Request a Bet service.
UK.- The Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) has overturned a previous ruling that banned a Sky Bet ad. This comes after the company appealed the decision, which took place after two complaints were received in March.
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.
When the ruling came to light in March, Sky Bet expressed its discontent. It said that it made no reference to knowledge increasing someone’s chances of winning.
After the appeal, ASA ruled that the ad was not socially irresponsible. This means that the company did not violate the CAP Code. The authority said that despite the fact that it did contain references to sports knowledge in betting, they can be interpreted as potential to use it when building a complex bet through Sky Bet’s Request a Bet.
