Ad description
Claims on www.tommoracing.com, a betting tipster website, stated "Recent winners" and listed recent winning horse racing tips. Further text provided additional information about the races. For example, one result stated "Examiner - Lingfield 09 Dec 2013 On the back of a very profitable weekend Examiner was another comfortable success for the Team seeing out victory by over two lengths".
Issue
The complainant challenged whether the listed winners were genuine tips offered by the service.
Response
Tommo Racing said all the tips they provided were independently verified by third parties and provided details of their proofing procedure. Proofing e-mails were sent to an initial third party, which in turn proofed the details to a racing publication and to an accountant's firm, also by e-mail.
Assessment
Not upheld
The ASA noted that the ad stated "Recent winners" and considered it was clear that the list provided set out the recent winners that the advertisers had tipped.
We understood that each recommended bet was lodged independently by e-mail with three third parties. We asked the advertiser and third parties to provide the proofing e-mails showing that the 25 winners listed in the ad had been independently lodged to a third party prior to each of the 25 races. We noted that the selections in the spreadsheets and proofing e-mails corresponded to the listed races and winners in the ad and noted the proofing e-mails had been sent to a third party before the start of each of the relevant races.
We noted, however, there were three examples in the list of 25 winners that were not included in the independent proofing e-mails provided. We understood that, in those three instances, the third party had received the 'Tip Updated' notification before the race, but had not been able to proof them onwards to the racing publication or accountant's firm before the race, due to lack of staff resources. However, the third party provided the 'tip update' proofing e-mail Tommo Racing had sent them before those three races, as well as screenshots of the tips which had been sent out to Tommo Racing's customers by text before each race. We noted that timestamp on the e-mails indicated that they had been sent before each of the three races.
Although we acknowledged that, in those three cases, independent proofing e-mails had not been provided to the ASA by a third party, we nonetheless considered that, on balance, and because we were satisfied that all the other tips listed on the "Recent winners" page had been independently proofed, we had seen sufficient evidence to indicate that Tommo Racing's tips had been proofed before the race. Because we considered that the advertisers had provided sufficient evidence to support the claims that they had tipped the "Recent winners" listed, we concluded that they were genuine tips offered by the service.
We investigated the claims under CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 3.1 Marketing communications must not materially mislead or be likely to do so. (Misleading advertising) and 3.7 3.7 Before distributing or submitting a marketing communication for publication, marketers must hold documentary evidence to prove claims that consumers are likely to regard as objective and that are capable of objective substantiation. The ASA may regard claims as misleading in the absence of adequate substantiation. (Substantiation), but did not find them in breach.
Action
No further action necessary.
