Ad description
A post on Astrid Wett’s X (formerly Twitter) page, seen on 12 March 2024, for Festival Free Bets, a company which collated betting offers, featured an image of Astrid Wett at Cheltenham racecourse.
Issue
The complainant challenged whether the ad breached the rules on gambling advertising because it featured Astrid Wett, who was under 25 years old.
Response
Festival Free Bets did not respond to the ASA’s enquiries.
Astrid Wett said she took matters of social responsibility seriously and understood the gravity of promoting responsible behaviour, especially regarding gambling. She said she was unaware of the age restrictions for ads for gambling services outlined in the CAP Code and assumed that being over 18 years old was sufficient to promote such content. She apologised for her breach of the Code and said she was committed to ensuring compliance with all relevant guidelines.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA was concerned by Festival Free Bets' lack of response and apparent disregard for the Code and ruled that they had breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rule 1.7 (Unreasonable delay). We reminded them of their responsibility to respond promptly to enquiries and told them to do so in future.
The CAP Code stated that marketing communications must be prepared with a sense of responsibility to consumers and to society. In addition, that no one who was, or seemed to be, under 25 years old could be featured playing a significant role in marketing communications for gambling services, apart from marketing communications where a bet could be placed directly through a transactional facility, for instance, a gambling operator’s own website and the person is the subject of the bet.
Although we acknowledged that Festival Free Bets was not itself a licensed gambling provider, using it would place consumers in a position where they would be interacting with gambling services. We therefore considered it would be irresponsible to feature someone who was aged under 25 playing a significant role in their ads.
The image of Astrid Wett was the central focus of the ad and we considered that she therefore played a significant role in it. We understood she was 23 years old at the time the ad was published.
Because the ad was for a service that was intended to facilitate gambling and featured someone who was aged under 25 playing a significant role, we concluded that it was irresponsible.
The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rule 1.3 (Social responsibility).
Action
The ad must not appear again in the form complained of. We told Festival Free Bets to ensure they did not feature individuals who were, or seemed to be, under 25 years old playing a significant role in marketing communications for services that would lead consumers to interact with gambling providers. We referred the matter to CAP’s Compliance team.
