ASA Upholds 888 Ad Complaint
The ASA has upheld a complaint made against an advert for one of 888 UK’s subsidiary brands. The standards body ruled that an online ad for online casino 777.com was misleading and must not appear again in its present form.
The ASA took issue with the ad’s inclusion of a countdown timer, which implied that the free spins offer was about to run out. ©Mike/Pexels
Misleading Offer
The Advertising Standards Authority is responsible for regulating the UK’s advertising industry, which it does by investigating complaints that it receives from the public. It recently received one such complaint about an advert from 777.com, an online gambling brand run by 888 UK.
888 is one of the UK’s leading gambling operators, offering online casino, poker, bingo and sports betting products to consumers around the world. 777.com is just one of its many brands, which include 888poker, winkbingo and poshbingo. In September, 888 made headlines when it signed a £2.2 billion deal for William Hill’s European assets.
The 777.com advert was seen by the complainant on the website www.betterdeals.live on June 14th 2021. It took the form of an advertorial, leading with the headline “This is a Slot Machine App You Should be Playing in 2021”.
The text below read “Using the free spins from the popular 777 Slots app, 32 year old Simona Moron wins the progressive jackpot*”, followed by “Casinos are trying to shut down a free Android App that’s allowing everyday people, like Simona Moron, to win huge progressive jackpots using nothing but free spins“.
At the bottom of the advert the text stated “77 Free Spins (*T&C’s apply) ENABLED FOR ANOTHER” and included a three-minute countdown timer. In total, three issues were noted concerning the content of the advert. Following an investigation, all three issues were upheld.
The initial issue brought by the complainant was that the countdown timer could be perceived as misleading, as the free spins offer did not end when it reached zero. This drew the ASA’s attention to two more issues. It questioned two aspects of the statement “Casinos are trying to shut down a free Android App that’s allowing everyday people, like Simona Moron, to win huge progressive jackpots using nothing but free spins”.
Ad Not Approved by 888
888 UK issued a response to the ASA’s investigation, defending its advertising practices. Like many other operators in the industry, it works with affiliate marketers to produce some of its advertising materials. Affiliates are rewarded for bringing new customers to a website, and use their own marketing methods to attract visitors.
The operator said that it has a policy in place with third-party publishers that produce their marketing materials, prohibiting them from using agencies not provided by 777.com themselves. In this instance, a third-party publisher used a creative agency that had not been approved by 888 UK.
Furthermore, 888 said that the ad was posted without their knowledge or approval. 777.com said that it became aware of the ad on July 2nd 2021, and immediately told the third-party publisher to remove it. As a result, the casino brand suspended all future campaigns with that publisher until further notice.
777.com may decide to work with the publisher in question again in the future, but it assured the ASA that it would only do so having reviewed and monitored all potential promotional materials. The ASA accepted the operator’s defense that the ad had been published without approval or consent by an affiliate marketer.
Nevertheless, the standards body concluded that having benefitted from the ad, 888 UK and 777.com were still responsible for it. The ASA judged that people viewing the ad would interpret that the countdown timer related to a time limit, during which the promotion needed to be claimed. Once the timer had run out, many viewers would think that the free spins offer was no longer available.
The ASA noted that there was a simple way to prove that the offer was not subject to a time limit, which was by refreshing the page. This would cause the timer to reset and start counting down for another three minutes. In all, the ASA found the timer mechanism to be misleading, as there was no time restriction in place.
Breached CAP Rules
The ASA also went into further detail about why it took issue with one of the ad’s statements. According to the ad, casinos have tried to shut down a free Android app. This claim was untrue and not supported by evidence. The claim that everyday people had accumulated huge winnings from progressive jackpots using only free spins was also without evidence.
As such, the ASA upheld all three issues as breaches of its code of advertising practice. The timer breached CAP Code rules 3.1 and 8.17, relating to misleading advertising and significant condition for promotions. The statement breached Cap Code rule 3.1, as well as 3.7, as it was misleading and contained an unsubstantiated claim.
Publishing the ruling against 888 UK and 777.com, the ASA stated the consequences of the investigation. The ad cannot be shown again in the same form and 888 UK has been told to ensure that future ads for 777.com use adequate evidence to substantiate claims. It noted that this rule also applies to content created by affiliate marketers.
Future advertising for 888 UK’s brands must also make sure that it does not mislead consumers by implying that offers are time-sensitive if that is not the case. This is not the first time that 888 has fallen foul of the UK’s advertising watchdog.
In 2017, it upheld a complaint made against another advertorial for one of its brands, this time 888 Casino. It received five complaints, which raised concerns over the advert’s suggestion that gambling could provide an escape from depression and solve financial problems. The ASA was also concerned that in its written form as an advertorial, it was not immediately clear to consumers that it was an ad.
888 was told to ensure that all future ads, including those produced by affiliates, should be clearly identifiable as marketing communications. It was also instructed to make sure that its ads were presented in a socially responsible way. The same year, 888 was hit with a £7.8 million fine from the Gambling Commission, after it uncovered player protection failings.
