Betfred rapped for misleading welcome offer
Email promotion sent to new customers banned by advertising watchdog
A Betfred welcome offer has been banned by the Advertising Standards Agency for “misleading” customers over its terms and conditions.
The advertising watchdog received a complaint about an email for new customers which said: “Simply stake £10 or more at odds of evens or greater in a single transaction and you will receive £30 in free bets!”
However one customer complained when he failed to qualify for the free bet because he didn’t realise it only applied to the first bet made.
The ASA upheld the complaint, pointing out that the first bet stipulation wasn’t made clear in the main text of the email and only said explicitly if a customer clicked through two links.
“Therefore, because of the omission of such a significant condition and the misleading impression given by the ad, we concluded that the promotion was misleading,” the ASA said. “The ad must not appear again in its current form.”
A second complaint was made against the same advert, with a member of the public arguing that the staking requirements of the offer were unclear.
However the ASA said the requirements of “a single transaction at evens or better”, were made obvious in the main text of the email.
The gaming industry is currently the subject of an investigation by the CMA into the “bamboozling” terms and conditions it uses for promotions, leading to some operators like Betfair already taking steps to simplify their offers