SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
The Advertising Standards Authority has warned Ladbrokes after an online sales promotion breached several articles of its CAP Code.
The independent regulator and watchdog said the ad, which stated “UP TO £500! IN FREE BETS ON LADBROKES EXCHANGE”, did not make the extent of the commitment and limitation clear. In order to receive the maximum of £500 free bets, the ASA estimated that a customer must have won a minimum of £38,500 on the Exchange.
Ladbrokes said the promotion was specifically designed to promote and reward customer loyalty, rather than being a short-term bonus. As there were no time restrictions and so customers included in the offer would continue to earn free bets, up to the maximum £500, for the lifetime of their account. They said that 890 customers had so far received free bets; 5.6% of those 890 customers had received the maximum £500 in free bets, a further 4.6% had so far received at least £250 of free bets, and a further 14.6% had so far received between £100 and £225 in free bets. Ladbrokes asserted that a high proportion of the included customers would eventually achieve the full £500 in free bets at some stage given that the promotion would remain in place for the lifetime of their accounts.
The ASA was not impressed though: “Because of the significant sums of money involved we understood it was unlikely that many customers would qualify for a reasonable percentage of the £500 of free bets for a significant time period, if at all. We therefore concluded that that significant limitation should have been made clear in the ad in order to avoid misleading consumers as to the likelihood of them being able to qualify for the full £500 of free bets.”
Ladbrokes has been told to make their terms and conditions evidently clear. “The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told Ladbrokes Betting and Gaming Ltd to ensure their advertising for the offer did not imply that a reasonable proportion of customers would fulfil the requirements to qualify for a significant percentage of the maximum £500 of free bets. We also told them to ensure the terms and conditions made clear the extent of the monetary commitment that was entailed in qualifying for each £25 of free bets,” added the supervisory group.
