‘Misleading’ TVBet Ads Banned By ASA After BetGames.TV Complaint
Digital and print ads promoting TVBet have been banned by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) for being “misleading” and “unverifiable”.
The complaints were made by BetGames.TV who questioned the ads. They appeared in September 2019 and, according to reports, claimed to have the biggest jackpots. The ads also suggested that the site is the world’s number one live game provider.
BetGames.TV questioned the claims and said the ads were misleading since they were unverifiable. Responding to the complaint, TVBet stated that the ads were not misleading as the company “ranked as number one in a list of live games providers”. The operator said the information was widely available at www.logincasino.org before promising to never use the claims in future advertising.
Following the complaints, the ASA launched an investigation into TVBet and its ads and found that the claims made in the advertisements were misleading and breached the ASA code. The organisation said in a statement:
“TVBet stated that the claim was based on the overall ranking from the table on www.logincasino.com. We noted that the ranking was headed business to business providers of live games for sports betting in 2019. However, the claim’#1 World’s Live-Games Provider’ was likely to be understood as referring to all live games, so it was unclear whether the ranking was relevant to the claim. That notwithstanding, TVBet had not provided any evidence to substantiate that they were the best-selling live games provider across all their games offerings compared to the rest of the market.”
The Ruling
The ASA found that the claims made in the ads would be “understood as comparative claims with the whole market” and that the ads did not direct businesses to other information regarding the comparisons of the claims and explaining their basis. As a result, the ASA ruled that the ads must not appear again in the form complained about and TVBet must ensure any future comparative claims are verifiable.
The news comes after the ASA urged the British public to report any gambling ads that refer to COVID-19. The advertising regulator made the plea earlier this month and promised that it would enforce swift action against any operators that breach advertising rules by referencing the virus.
The ASA’s plea comes after Gamstop urged all gamblers worried about developing an addition or problematic behaviour to self-exclude themselves. It also comes after the UK Gambling Commission implemented its ban on credit cards for gambling, hoping that the ban will help crackdown on the number of people gambling during the UK lockdown.