Ad description
A promoted tweet for bet365, seen in January 2024, contained an image
that featured boxer Chris Eubank Jr. The 😄 caption stated, “It’s fight week! Chris Eubank
Jr and Liam Smith will be Unleashed in Manchester. Click here for latest
😄 odds”.
Issue
Response
The ASA challenged whether the ad included an individual who was
likely to be of strong appeal to under-18s, and 😄 therefore breached the Code.
Hillside
(UK Sports) ENC t/a bet365 said that their social media channels were age-gated to
users who 😄 were 18 years and over. They explained that where a platform did not have
robust age verification methods in place, 😄 bet365’s targeted campaigns were only served
to users identified as 25 years and over and had relative interests. Bet365 said 😄 that
all social media channels had exclusion lists, so that users who were identified as
self-excluded or at a higher 😄 risk of gambling related harm did not receive targeted
content.
Bet365 said they had developed robust processes which included reviewing all
😄 individuals and content across all of their UK marketing channels. They said that an
independent compliance team at bet365 carried 😄 out the reviews, and that all reviews
were documented and compiled using ASA guidelines. They said that individuals or
content 😄 deemed to be of high risk would not be used in marketing communications. bet365
also explained that they conducted ongoing 😄 live monitoring of individuals used in their
marketing communications to ensure that they were not of high risk after appearing 😄 in
an ad. They stated that people with inherent strong appeal, such as European top flight
footballers, were automatically excluded 😄 from their marketing.
Regarding the complaint,
bet365 said that the ad was only displayed to users aged 25 and over and 😄 to individuals
who had displayed interest in relevant content. bet365 stated that they had carried out
a risk assessment of 😄 Chris Eubank Jr against the CAP guidance on gambling and lotteries
advertising and were satisfied to a high degree that 😄 the ad did not have appeal to
under-18s.
They explained that Chris Eubank Jr was 33 years old and was best 😄 known for
being a professional boxer in the Middleweight and Super-Middleweight divisions. They
said that as per CAP’s guidance, he 😄 was deemed as having low or moderate risk, since
boxing was an adult-oriented sport, and that he did not have 😄 appeal to under-18s in the
context of his profile within the sport.
Bet365 acknowledged that Chris Eubank Jr had
appeared on 😄 Celebrity Gogglebox, but said they had deemed that appearance as being of
low risk because the programme was aired after 😄 9pm and because he had made brief
appearances in the programme alongside his father, Chris Eubank.
bet365 also noted a
previous 😄 ASA Ruling had concluded that Celebrity Gogglebox was “primarily aimed at an
adult audience”, and was unlikely to have resulted 😄 in a significant change in an
individual’s level of appeal to under-18s. bet365 said that for the same reasons, they
😄 did not deem Chris Eubank Jr’s appearance on the programme to be a reason for under-18s
to watch it, and 😄 that they did not deem him to have strong appeal as a result of
appearing on the programme.
bet365 said that 😄 as per CAP guidance, boxing was a more
adult-oriented sport. They said that they had assessed Chris Eubank Jr’s social 😄 media
profiles prior to publishing the ad. They provided details of his audience demographics
on social media which showed that 😄 on Facebook, 0.1% of his followers were registered as
under 18. On Twitter, 0.3% of his followers were registered as 😄 under 18, and on
Instagram 0.4% were registered as under 18, and said this demonstrated that he had low
risk 😄 in appealing to under-18s. They said that he did not have a public account on
YouTube. They also provided data 😄 for his followers on TikTok that showed that of his
21,300 followers, 31.7% were registered as under 18. They said, 😄 however, that bet365
did not have a profile or presence on that platform and therefore none of his followers
would 😄 see any bet365 content. They also said the majority of his followers were split
across Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and 😄 of his total follower count, 0.6% were
registered as under 18.
They also provided the BARB viewing data for the Chris 😄 Eubank
Jr and Liam Smith boxing match that showed of the 345,000 viewers, there were no
under-24s who had watched 😄 it. The data also showed the largest demographic of viewers
were aged between 35 and 54. Bet365 also provided the 😄 viewing data for the fight which
was uploaded on YouTube. It showed that 0.5% of viewers were registered as under 😄 18 and
that the largest demographic of viewers were aged between 25 and 44.
They said all ads
were also risk 😄 assessed on a case-by-case basis. bet365 said that they were confident
that Chris Eubank Jr, and therefore the ad, did 😄 not have a strong appeal to
under-18s.
Twitter said that the promoted tweet was not in breach of Twitter’s Ad
Policies. 😄 They confirmed that they had not received any complaints about the ad. They
said that in the event the complaint 😄 was upheld, the ad would be
removed.
Assessment
Not upheld
The CAP Code stated that marketing communications for
gambling products must not be 😄 likely to be of strong appeal to children or young
persons, especially by reflecting or being associated with youth culture. 😄 They must not
include a person or character whose example was likely to be followed by those aged
under 18 😄 years or who had strong appeal to those aged under 18. The ASA expected
advertisers to provide evidence that they 😄 had identified what persons or characters
were generally known for outside the context of an ad, and had used appropriate 😄 sources
of data and information to assess their likely level of appeal to under-18s. Because
the ad had appeared in 😄 a medium where under-18s could not be entirely excluded from the
audience it needed to comply with that rule.
The ASA 😄 noted that sportspeople involved
in clearly adult-oriented sports who were ‘notable’ stars with significant social media
and general profiles which 😄 made them well-known to under-18s were considered of
‘moderate risk’ within the CAP guidance “Gambling and lotteries: Protecting under-18s”
in 😄 terms of how likely they were to be of strong appeal to under-18s.
Chris Eubank Jr
was a current professional boxer, 😄 and the ad focused specifically on his upcoming
boxing match against Liam Smith. We considered that boxing was an adult-oriented 😄 sport
and was unlikely to be of inherent strong appeal to under-18s. The BARB viewing data
and the viewing data 😄 on YouTube for the boxing match also showed that the majority of
viewers were adults, and we did not consider 😄 the event itself likely to appeal strongly
to under-18s.
We also considered how likely it was that Chris Eubank Jr would 😄 appeal
strongly to under-18s based on his social media and general profiles. He had a large
following on social media, 😄 including Instagram and Facebook, which totalled over 1.7
million followers, and had appeared on Celebrity Gogglebox in 2024. Most of 😄 his
followers on social media were split across Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. In total,
he had 10,905 followers who were 😄 registered as under 18 from the 1.7 million followers
across social media, which did not suggest a strong appeal to 😄 those who were under
18.On TikTok, 31.7% of his followers were registered as under 18. We considered there
was a 😄 risk in including figures in gambling ads who had an account on TikTok and who
had a large number of 😄 followers who were under 18. However, the total number of his
followers (of all ages) on that platform was around 😄 21,000, compared to the total of
over 1.7 million across all of the platforms. We considered the number of under-18
😄 followers on TikTok was not significant in absolute terms, and did not imply strong
appeal to under-18s more generally.We noted 😄 that Celebrity Gogglebox had been broadcast
after 9 pm and we considered that it was primarily aimed at an adult 😄 audience. We also
noted that his appearance in the show was limited and that he only appeared for a few
😄 minutes over the programme’s season in 2024. We considered that his appearance on the
show was unlikely to have resulted 😄 in a change in his level of appeal to
under-18s.
Lastly, we considered that there was nothing in the way he 😄 was presented in
the ad that would have strongly attracted the attention of under-18s or was likely to
render him 😄 of strong appeal.Given the above factors, we therefore concluded that the ad
was not of strong appeal to children or 😄 young persons.
We investigated the ad under CAP
Code (Edition 12) rules 16.1, 16.3 and 16.3.12 (Gambling), but did not find 😄 it in
breach.
Action
No further action necessary.
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