Betfair poker ad banned; company's second ad ban since August

BETFAIR’S ADVERT featuring Annette Obrestad has been banned by the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), the second advert that the British betting exchange has had banned in two months.

The email poker advert, which featured an image of 2007 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Europe winner Obrestad (pictured) alongside the text “online experience is measured in games, not years. Join the new breed. Annette Obrestad – Annette_15,” was struck down after the ASA upheld complaints that it could encourage children and young people to gamble.

The ad campaign is the second Betfair has had to pull since the ASA banned Betfair’s Starting Price (SP) billlboard campaign in August for being “likely to mislead” by claiming its odds available were 40% better than the industry SP.

The use of Obrestad’s “Annette_15″ Betfair Poker moniker, under which she started playing on the site five years ago, was said by the ASA to imply she was still 15 years old, and therefore breached its code that no-one under age of 25 should be featured gambling in a marketing communication.

In response, Betfair said that it did not believe the advert would encourage children and young people to gamble, because of the media selection used to distribute the email it was featured in, and because of technical measures used by its site to prevent children and young people from gambling.

However the gaming giant apologised to the ASA for the error, and said that they were disappointed that Annette Obrestad had been used in material directed to UK consumers and that the marketing department had been instructed not to use her again.

Contacted for this news story, Betfair declined to comment further.

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