Analysis: Social media regulation and the internet of warnings

It was the tail end of 2018 when Sky UK CEO Stephen van Rooyen slammed the gambling industry’s whistle-to-whistle ban on televised betting adverts, suggesting it would do little to protect problem gamblers because the real issue centred on online advertising.

The Remote Gambling Association (RGA), led by heavyweight UK operators including GVC and William Hill, thought it was being proactive by announcing the voluntary ad ban which will come into force during televised live sporting events from August 2019.

The hope from the industry is that the ban will quell the tide of anti-gambling rhetoric in the UK media and help to address public concerns over the volume of gambling adverts on television, especially during live sport, while support groups like GambleAware have complained that the saturation of gambling advertising normalises betting for young children watching at home.

Van Rooyen obviously has a dog in the fight. Sky was highlighted as one of the biggest losers from the proposed self-regulation on ads with industry analysts pointing out the ban would prevent the “bidding war” that Sky’s one-gambling-advert-per-break policy would have fostered.

“If the RGA and gambling companies are serious about protecting vulnerable gamblers, then they should start by looking at where they spend the most money, what has the least level of regulation and where there is most evidence of harm: the online world,” said van Rooyen in no uncertain terms.

Sky did concede that a limit on gambling advertising was the right thing to do despite the obvious negative financial impact on the media organisation, but van Rooyen highlighted recent figures from GambleAware that suggested more than 80% of the gambling industry’s ad spend was funnelled into online channels at a cost of £1.2bn, approximately five times more than is spent on TV.

“What this has shown is that yet again there is a disparity of regulation between TV and online platforms and that there are bigger issues at stake that affect us all,” added van Rooyen. While van Rooyen is far from neutral in this discussion, he may still have a point. The GambleAware financial analysis was conducted by industry analyst firm Regulus Partners.

Regulus estimated the total spend by gambling companies on all marketing activity has gone up by 56% since 2014, which might go some way to explaining why the viewing public have been getting sick of Ray Winstone and his contemporaries over the last few years. But just 15% of marketing spend is going towards TV at a cost of £234m.

Social services

Compare this to direct online internet marketing, which accounts for 48% of total ad spend at a whopping £747m, and it is peanuts in comparison. Advertising through affiliate marketing, including websites and tipsters comes in at £301m, or 19% of total expenditure, while social media advertising is costing the industry £149m – a figure that has tripled over the last three years. The UK Gambling Commission’s (UKGC) own study revealed that around 70% of young people had seen gambling adverts on social media, while 66% had seen gambling adverts on other sites online.

Some, including gambling PR expert Alex Donohue, argue that the rapid increase in social media advertising has led to a largely unregulated marketing field that has the greatest potential to cause gambling-related harm to vulnerable individuals. While Ofcom and the Advertising Standards Authority monitor TV and direct online marketing material, who is keeping watch on social media?

Donohue says: “If the industry is truly serious about self-regulation of marketing to reduce harm, the first port of call for change must be its activity on social media, which has to be reviewed far more urgently. It’s not beyond the realms of possibility that the same lobby which successfully pushed for the TV ban will now have social media in their crosshairs. It’s actually surprising how little the bonnet has been lifted by the usual suspects into social media ads,” he adds.

However, it is important to point out that the world of online gambling marketing, and particularly on social media, is not just some kind of Wild West-style free-for-all. The Industry Group for Responsible Gambling (IGRG) published an updated industry code for socially responsible online advertising all the way back in November 2017 when affiliate marketing was heavily under fire.

All UK-facing operators were expected to follow the code under the terms of their UKGC licensing condition which included the implementation of age-screening tools on Twitter to stop under-18s from seeing gambling content, with similar age restrictions applied on all YouTube videos.

“The advertising of gambling has probably never been more in the spotlight than it is at present and we await with interest the eventual conclusions of the ongoing DCMS review,” IGRG chairman John Hagan said at the time while eluding to the government department responsible for the cutting of FOBT stakes to £2.

“In the meantime, pursuant to our own commitment to review the Code on a regular basis, I am glad that we have brought forward now some very worthwhile additions relating to advertising on social media, affiliate marketing and the referencing of www.begambleaware.org in print and broadcast advertising,” he added.

Government groans

DCMS, the UK government’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport, has played a pivotal role in reshaping the country’s gambling industry since Hagan published his comments. Not only were FOBT stakes cut down to £2 from £100 – sparking a 6% increase in Remote Gaming Duty (RGD) to 21% – but DCMS has this year promised to hone in on the online gambling industry with similar scrutiny.

This was perhaps best demonstrated when the fixed-odds betting terminals (FOBT) All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) changed its name to the Gambling Related Harm APPG amid a pledge to tackle the online gambling sector in January 2019.

After successfully campaigning to reduce FOBT stakes, the group has promised to begin looking at gambling-related harm more widely and will start with a new inquiry: “assessing the impact of online gambling on the vulnerable, including children”.

Welsh Labour MP for Swansea East Carolyn Harris will continue to chair the group, alongside vice-chairs Iain Duncan Smith MP, Ronnie Cowan MP, Lord Chadlington and Jim Shannon MP. Harris said: “Many of us are deeply concerned about the harms caused by online gambling and particularly the impact and harm of online gambling on children. We are therefore beginning our new work programme by undertaking an inquiry looking at the harm caused specifically by online gambling.”

She added: “Not enough is being done in this area and we will be running an inquiry and then setting out the policy and potentially legislative changes that are required. Urgent action is needed and as a group in Parliament we are determined to see that action happen.”

While Harris does not explicitly mention online advertising in her stark warning, it would be fair to assume that marketing practices will come under the parliamentary microscope at some point, particularly if Britain’s biggest broadcasting corporations up their lobbying efforts. It is certainly one to keep an eye on.