Coral and LeoVegas hit with ad bans

Coral and LeoVegas were both hit with advertising bans by the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) on Wednesday.

Coral’s case centred on a TV ad from April showing stylised clips of characters playing football with a voice-over saying: “The beautiful game, you can watch it or you can get involved in it with the latest Coral action. So are you a spectator or are you a player? You decide.”

Two complainants challenged whether the ad was harmful because it implied gambling was better than watching the sport.

The ASA upheld the complaints, adding: “The ASA considered the overall tone of the ad implied that gambling was more exciting than being a spectator or playing the game.

The watchdog added: “We concluded the ad was likely to suggest peer pressure to gamble, disparage abstention and unduly suggest that gambling could enhance personal qualities and therefore breached the Code.

The ad must not appear again in its current form and Coral were warned to avoid similar mistakes in their future messaging.

The watchdog also came down on LeoVegas this morning, after a series of promoted tweets that said: “It still hasn’t been fixed!” Beneath the post was a link which stated “Big wins for Brits after online casino’s ‘glitch’”.

The tweet linked through to a page which described a bonus offer from LeoVegas.

Consumers said the ad was misleading because it implied there was fault with an online casino’s website was allowing consumers to win when gambling.

And the ASA upheld the complaint and banned the ad, writing that the use of the word glitch was indeed misleading.