The Advertising Standards Authority and the Committee of Advertising Practice have issued guidance to gambling operators on what constitutes a gambling advertisement that has particular appeal to under 18 year olds, stating that, since 2007, such ads will have been likely to break the CAP Code, particularly if they are generally available to view by them.

This guidance will be helpful to those online operators who, as you can read here, received from The Gambling Commission, the Committee of Advertising Practice, the Advertising Standards Authority and the Remote Gambling Association a letter advising them to amend or remove immediately any advertisements on their websites or in third party media that are:

  • likely to appeal particularly to people aged 17 or younger and
  • generally available to view (“freely accessible”).

The guidance can be downloaded below. It serves to underline that:

  1. The CAP Code applies to advertising in a wide range of media, including on a company’s own website or in other non-paid-for space online under their control where the content is directly connected with the supply of goods, services, opportunities or gifts.
  2. This means that, in addition to things like paid-for ads in third party space and e-mail/direct marketing, images and text on a gambling operator’s own website (or social media) that are ‘directly connected’ to their gambling products or other services will be considered ‘ads’ by the ASA.  This includes game thumbnails, screenshots and logos as well as the names and descriptions of games.
  3. The actual gambling products/games themselves are unlikely, in the vast majority of cases, to fall within the scope of the CAP Code because they are products.  However, the guidance warns that there may be some elements or indeed ads for other products within these games that will be covered by the Code.
  4. Ads are ‘freely accessible’ if they can be viewed by an audience that does not effectively exclude under-18s.  On a marketer’s own website, this means that if someone can view the advertising content without having to log in and verify their identity, it is likely to be considered ‘freely accessible’.  As best practice, the guidance recommends entering credit card details as likely to be a sufficiently robust age verification check method.
  5. Without these checks, children and young people could potentially view the ad because there is nothing to prevent them from doing so.  Simply ticking a box stating you are 18+ is  unlikely to be considered sufficient to exclude under-18s from the audience and so where this method is used to restrict the audience, the ads are likely to still be considered ‘freely accessible’.
  6. Content that is likely to appeal more strongly to under-18s than to those aged 18 and over will be regarded as having particular appeal to children and/or young persons.  If the content is likely to appeal to both under-18s and adults equally, or more so to adults, then it is unlikely to be considered problematic.
  7. Marketers need to take care with the imagery and wording used in their ads for gambling products or games. Colourful and exaggerated cartoon-style graphics are likely to be considered to have particular appeal to under-18s, as are cartoon animals.  Characters from, or similar to those from, children’s TV, films, nursery rhymes and fairy tales are similarly at risk of being particularly appealing to children.
  8. The names of games such as “Piggy Payout”, “Fluffy Favourites”, “Pirate Princess” and “Jack and the Beanstalk”, depending on the context, could also be seen to have particular appeal because they contain elements familiar to children and young persons which may contribute to their appeal to that group.

The guidance goes on to advise as follows:

  • If the ad is ‘freely accessible’ and its content is of particular appeal to children or young persons, that ad will break the rules.  It is therefore up to you to ensure that you don’t feature content that is of particular appeal to under-18s in ads that are freely accessible by removing the content completely or moving it to where it can only be accessed by an audience that has gone through sufficiently robust steps to verify that they are of an appropriate age.
  • Marketers should review all of their ‘freely accessible’ ads for gambling products or games, including ‘play-for-free’ games, paying particular attention to the images displayed on their websites or social media, and in third party media.  This includes content created by affiliates because this is equally covered by the CAP Code and gambling operators are held, at least jointly, responsible for the content created by their affiliates.
  • If you are unsure whether your ad has particular appeal to under-18s, whether the placement makes it ‘freely accessible’ or whether it’s even covered by the Code, the best approach is a cautious one.  If you’d like a view on anything you’re not sure about, the guidance invites you to submit a query to the Copy Advice team for free advice.