Paddy Power gets fined

UK authorities have fined Paddy Power due to an alleged violation of advertisements law.

UK.- The leading sports betting operator in the United Kingdom, Paddy Power, has been censured by the country’s Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) arguing the company has broken the publicity law. Paddy Power has launched an advertising campaign under the image of boxer Floyd Mayweather.

The local press has reported that Paddy Power’s advertisement was first published on August 23 in the Evening Standard newspaper, and it allegedly said ‘Always Bet On Black’ alongside an image of Mayweather. According to ASA, the organisation has received over 9 complaints about the publicity.

“We considered that readers would interpret the headline to be a pun on Floyd Mayweather’s race and betting on roulette,” the ASA said. “We understood that the headline was also intended to be a reference to a 1992 film quote. There was, however, nothing further in the ad, which indicated that the headline was a film quote, and we considered that many readers would be unfamiliar with the quote.”

Furthermore, the statement added: “We acknowledged that the headline claim did not make a negative statement about Floyd Mayweather’s race and had endorsed him to win the match; we also acknowledged that Floyd Mayweather had authorised the claim.

“However, we considered that readers would nevertheless be offended by the invitation to always bet on the outcome of a boxing match based on a boxer’s race, and the message that the boxing match was a fight between two different races. For those reasons, we concluded that the ad was likely to cause serious offence on the grounds of race.”