Gambling ads, sport, and influencers - what does ‘strong appeal to under-18s’ mean? (The Jake Paul & Premier League managers cases)

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has been relatively active in the gambling industry, with two new rulings published in July 2023 in respect of the gambling advertising rules that came into force last year.

On 1 October 2022, a new gambling advertising rule was introduced (a summary of which can be read here1) which strengthened the obligations on gambling operators to ensure the content of their ads is not appealing to under 18s, especially by reflecting or being associated with youth culture. At the time, questions were raised as to what a “strong appeal” really means, but the emergence of rulings since then has provided useful insight into what the ASA is likely to consider falling within the scope. The ASA has upheld rulings against adverts that featured “star” footballers (see here2), but didn’t consider other sports stars, including Peter Crouch, Micah Richards (see here3) or Chris Eubank Jr. (see here4), to appeal strongly to young people.

On 5 July, the ASA upheld a complaint concerning a promoted tweet for LC International (trading as Ladbrokes). It further upheld a second complaint against Ladbrokes on the 12 July for promoting images of Premier League managers in another paid-for advert on Twitter (or ‘X’ – but we’ll stick to ‘Twitter’ for this article!) In each case, individuals that appeared in the ads were considered to have a strong appeal to under-18s, in breach of the UK Code of Non-broadcast Advertising (CAP Code).