ASA Tell Jumpman Gaming Not To Come Back
Published On 20th July 2023
Advertising online bingo and slots brands has become more and more restricted in The UK over recent years. In many respects many of those restrictions are sensible for the existence of a responsible gambling industry. However whilst we've not quite reached the levels of some European countries, who have all but banned online gambling advertising, we could be getting closer. Overseeing any potential breaches of advertising is ASA ( Advertising Standards Authority Ltd) and this month they've published findings against Jumpman Gaming, and in particular Lights Camera Bingo. The issue that was raised was regarding a message that appeared in the browser title of the website. A complaint was made that suggested the message could "encourage harmful gambling behaviour".
Hey! Come Back
If you've been on any of the numerous Jumpman Gaming brands and looked at the title of the site in your browser when you leave the site open but perhaps change tab then you might have noticed the words "Hey! Come Back" appearing instead of the name of site or title of the page you're viewing. In our view it was a little bit annoying but nothing more than that and not exactly an advert. However at least one person thought it to be sufficiently bad that they made a complaint to ASA. They felt that the message "to consumers who had left the website could encourage harmful gambling behaviour, challenged whether the ad was irresponsible". Jumpman Gaming defended the message by explaining that there was no specific call to action and that not many of their players actually saw the message. In fact they claim that "5% of their customer base accessed the website on a desktop device" which is quite a remarkable indicator of mobile casino usage. Despite Jumpman's fair response to the claim they did agree to remove the message which seems appropriate if hardly anyone sees it.
Complaint Upheld
Regardless of Jumpman's decision to remove the message, ASA upheld the complaint. ASA explained "that ads for gambling must be socially responsible and must not encourage gambling behaviour that was socially irresponsible or could lead to financial, social or emotional harm". In their view, after studying how the message works, they concluded that "it was a marketing communication that fell within the remit of the CAP Code"..."by displaying a call to action to “come back”, that would be understood as an instruction, strongly encouraging consumers to return to using the website, when they had either paused their bingo play or stopped play by leaving the web page". The findings concluded that "that the ad encouraged consumers to engage in gambling behaviour that could lead to financial, social or emotional harm". Given that Jumpman Gaming have now removed the message from Lights Camera Bingo and all other brands this should be the end of the matter and no further action is necessary. However Jumpman were warned that future marketing content should not encourage irresponsible gambling behaviour.
Ladbrokes Rapped For Tweeting
If you think that ruling was harsh just wait until you hear about Ladbrokes. Earlier in the year they tweeted content about the success of Eddie Howe at Newcastle United and Premier League Managers who may be next for the sack. In both cases there were no links to Ladbrokes or encouragement to gamble although the latter did contain the latest odds. However they both contained images that "were likely to be of strong appeal to those under 18 years of age". Ladbrokes defended their content but ASA "considered that because both ads appeared in paid-for space online, they were marketing communications within the remit of the CAP Code". Therefore in conclusion, ASA told Ladbrokes "not to include people or characters who had strong appeal to those under 18 years of age in their advertising". That means that in future they can't show images of managers, players or teams when mentioning anything. For some this may seem OK, but by the same token there are plenty of teams posting pictures of their players online adorned in football shirts emblazoned with gambling company logos. It just goes to show how stupid the whole situation has become.
Deleting 2017 Tweets
And we have our own little story of over the top micro management of content to share. Last week we received notice regarding updating some content on Loquax Bingo which we duly fixed. However we were also asked to removed a tweet from an old twitter account for Spins.co.uk, a site that we've recently had to close down because it's no longer viable. The tweet in question was made in July 2017 - six years ago! Given that Elon Musk is limiting everyone without a blue tick to being able to read hardly any tweets it did make us wonder just who is trawling Twitter that far back. Had we made the tweet last week then yes it'd make sense to delete it, but six years ago? There's no sense or logic in making us go back and delete the tweet but if we didn't we'd not be able to earn revenue with the brand who requested it. Yes folks that's the kind of industry we're in! It's one full of don't do this and don't do that. One that is lacking a large amount of common sense and logic. Insignificant browser bar messages, images of football managers and tweets from 2017 are not going to solve any gambling crisis. It's minutiae in a larger sea of issues.
