Ad description
The home page of the website www.slottyvegas.com, seen on 13 December 2017, stated “OUR GAMES PAY MORE”.
Issue
The complainant challenged whether the claim “our games pay more” was misleading and could be substantiated.
Response
NRR Entertainment Ltd t/a Slotty Vegas explained that the claim “our games pay more” was based on the “Supercharged Wins” feature which added extra funds to each winning round made during gameplay. They said that every time a player received a winning round, the system would automatically credit extra funds which were calculated as a proportion of the win into a separate cash balance that was not tied to any conditions which required further gameplay. They said that information was explained on their website by clicking on the “read more” function under the Supercharged Wins infographic. The claim meant that players would receive a higher payout under Supercharged Wins than they would have if they played without the feature being applied.
They explained that all operators used an identical random number generator which defined the payout of all games offered, which was expressed as a ‘return to player’ (RTP) percentage and which was set at a particular ‘factory setting’ percentage. The formula was used to calculate casino game profitability using average casino margin benchmarks. When the Supercharged Wins feature was applied to every winning round, around 1% (or between 0.5% to 1.5% depending on the player’s VIP status) of the winning amount was added on as cash winnings. That meant that the system automatically increased the payout of each winning round so that the total amount of winnings paid out by each game was measurably higher, hence the claim “our games pay more”. They said that other operators offering the games kept the RTP percentage at the ‘factory setting’ and did not have features that automatically increased the win amount on each winning round.
They provided the formula used on their games and the calculation used to work out how much higher the payout of the games on their site were compared to the same game titles that were offered elsewhere. They referred to a standard industry payout rate (the RTP) and said that by adding Supercharged Wins they were increasing that rate by 1% more than other operators. That could be translated to around 28% of casino margin that was returned to players as real funds.
They also provided details of their revenue in 2017 with and without the Supercharged wins feature to demonstrate that their RTP percentage increased the amount of payouts that their games had given back to players.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA considered that in the absence of any further qualification within the claim, that consumers would understand the claim “our games pay more” to mean that players would receive a higher payout from games on the Slotty Vegas website than from games on other online casinos. We therefore expected to see evidence to show that Slotty Vegas’ games paid more compared to the rest of the market.
We understood that the claim was based on the “Supercharged Wins” feature which topped up player’s winnings with an extra amount which could be exchanged for cash. Slotty Vegas had referred to a casino margin and a standard industry payout rate (the RTP) and had provided information about their own revenues and how much they paid out in winnings. However, they did not provide any specific data to show how much their competitors paid out in winnings in order to substantiate the comparative claim. We therefore concluded that in the absence of evidence to demonstrate that their games paid more than their competitors, the claim “our games pay more” was misleading.
The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 3.1 Marketing communications must not materially mislead or be likely to do so. (Misleading advertising), 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) and 3.33 3.33 Marketing communications that include a comparison with an identifiable competitor must not mislead, or be likely to mislead, the consumer about either the advertised product or the competing product. (Comparisons).
Action
The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told Slotty Vegas to ensure that they did not use the claim “our games pay more” unless they held adequate evidence to show that was the case.
