Rare praise for Gambling Industry from the ASA

By Simon Wright, Last updated Feb 4, 2021

The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority has bestowed rare praise on the gambling sector, with the ASA revealing that iGaming operators are ensuring that the placement of adverts appearing on sites targeting minors has reduced significantly.

As part of their latest monitoring sweep of websites covering the period July to September 2020,  the ASA undertook a scan of 49 sites and 7  YouTube channels, all of the sites scanned had been identified by the ASA as receiving a a disproportionately high child audience. Of which a total of five betting and gaming adverts run by three operators appeared on six of the sites scanned.

This figure compares favourably to the first sweep undertaken at the beginning of the year, where a total of 70 gambling related advertisements were identified. Additionally the ASA have confirmed that none of the gambling operators contacted after the first sweep, were found to be in breach of their rules and regulations during this latest monitoring period.

The ASA’s Chief Executive Officer Guy Parker, commenting on the above stated: “We’re encouraged to see advertisers, most notably in the gambling sector, taking steps to target their age-restricted online ads responsibly.”

“We’ll continue working with advertisers and taking action where necessary to build a culture of zero tolerance for age-restricted ads appearing on websites aimed at children.”

---