ASA upholds complaints against 888 over misleading ad

The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has upheld complaints against 888 regarding an ambiguous ad published by an affiliate marketing site

The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has upheld complaints against 888 regarding an ambiguous advert published past an affiliate marketing site.

An advert for 888 trademark 777.com was uploaded to www.betterdeals.live on 14 June 2021, which received complaints concerning its mention of a countdown timer for a release spins offer.

Text stating “77 Free Spins (*T&C’s apply) ENABLED FOR ANOTHER” was attended past a countdown timer from 3 minutes, but the bid did non oddment when it reached zero.

888 argued that the advertisement was posted without its knowledge, highlighting a insurance policy prohibiting third-party publishers from using materials which had non been approved past the company.

It went on to postulate that it had identified the advert on 2 July and instructed the affiliate to take away it. Furthermore, 888 suspended all campaigns with the relevant publishing house until farther notice.

Despite these arguments, the ASA opted to maintain the complaint, determining that 888 was responsible for(p) as the donee of the marketing material.

In its statement, the ASA said: “We considered that consumers would realise that the countdown timer would relate to a specific time restriction in which the “77 Free Spins” furtherance needful to follow claimed, and that at one time it ran down to cypher the offer up would no thirster follow available.

“However, we understood that if the pageboy was refreshed, the timer would reset to starting counting push down from ternary minutes again. Therefore, because the promotion was not clip limited, we concluded the ad was misleading.”

This complaint was attended by two more regarding the ad’s claims that “casinos are trying to shut down feather a unloosen Android app” and “that’s allowing mundane people, same Simona Moron, to win immense progressive jackpots using nada but loose spins.”

However, the ASA asserted that 777.com provided no more evidence to sustenance either exact and, in the absence of such evidence, deemed the advertizement misleading on both counts.