Jackpotjoy TV ad "misleading", says ASA
Advertising Standards Authority says TV ad could mislead players into thinking they could win a £10,000 jackpot every hour of the day
Gamesys subsidiary Profitable Play has been reprimanded by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) over a “misleading” TV ad it ran for its Jackpotjoy brand.
The ad featured balls, which had “£10,000” written on them, slung into the air and landing where people were using mobile devices, before exploding and covering the people in gold glitter.
Actress Barbara Windsor then stated: “up to 10,000 jackpots every hour” while on-screen text stated: “up to £10,000 every hour” with on-screen text stating: “Max individual Jackpot Hero prize £1,000. Min 13 games/day”.
Two complainants, who had discovered that prizes were awarded at random intervals between 13 and 15 times a day, challenged whether the claim “up to £10,000 every hour” was misleading.
In its response, Profitable Play said it considered the number of times the Jackpot Hero message appeared each day to be a “significant term” because it was “fixed at between 13 and 15 per day”.
They also said that the Jackpot Hero message did not appear more than once in any hour, which supported the “every hour” claim made in the ad, and the Jackpot Hero message appeared during the “core gaming hours” to ensure that they would reward the largest number of consumers.
Ad clearing agency Clearcast said it questioned whether “every hour” could mislead, but said Jackpotjoy had “explained that there would be a minimum of 13 games” and that a game would be available “every hour during the core gaming hours”.
But the ASA reached a different conclusion, and said in its ruling that it understood a number of consumers were active on the site outside of the core gaming hours, and those users “would believe they would be able to win a jackpot at any time”.
“We considered that viewers would interpret the claim “every hour” to mean there would be at least one jackpot each hour, for the entire 24-hour period,” the ASA said.
“We considered that the qualification “min 13 games/day” contradicted rather than clarified the claim, and therefore concluded that the ad was misleading,” it added.
Profitable Play was told the ad must not be broadcast again in its current form.