Over the past year, there has been an incredible surge in online gambling activity. The pandemic was partly responsible for this but still, we cannot downplay the impact that great marketing had on this. Gambling advertising is still a rather controversial area. Thankfully, concerned parties are always working towards ways of ensuring that responsible advertising is the norm. Several recent developments illustrate this. The most notable highlights so for include:
Snapchat’s Opt-Out Feature in the United Kingdom
Snapchat stands out for being a very popular social platform. Its model of operation, much like many other platforms, revolves around adverts. In a bid to deal with some of the concerns that have been raised in the UK, Snapchat has recently added a special opt-out option for gambling ads.
This development was made possible thanks to a collaborative effort between Snapchat and the Betting and Gaming Commission. In addition to helping users opt-out of gambling ads, the new feature also adds to the Industry Code for Socially Responsible Advertising. The code was released last year and is intended to strengthen advertising regulations.
Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) Puts Some Advertisers on the Spotlight
ASA is also doing quite well when it comes to fulfilling its mandate. The authority has recently released findings that revealed that gambling ads were served similarly to people of all ages including children. Now, this is of course a very big problem and needs to be addressed as fast as possible.
“We call on advertisers to make better use of targeting tools to minimize children’s exposure to dynamically served age-restricted ads. And we call on third parties involved in the distribution of these ads to ensure the data and modeling on which those tools rely are as effective as they can be. Finally, we will be exploring whether the report should lead to more prescriptive measures relating to dynamically-served age-restricted ads.”
Guy Parker, chief executive of the ASA.
While the figures in the report may be a little divergent from actual real-world exposure, they still offer a wide overview of the way advertising is handled in some places.
Coalition Against Gambling Ads (CAGA) To Go on Tour
In a bid to further its agenda, the Coalition Against Gambling Ads (CAGA) has organized a five-day tour that will kick off on Monday 6 September. During the tour, the not-for-profit campaign will be working towards raising awareness about the potential consequences of normalizing gambling advertisements on both adults and young children in the UK.
The tour will be led by members of the Clean Up Gambling, The Big Step Charity, and Gambling with Lives. All of them should be able to realize better results through this collaboration. Already, they have been able to make some impressive progress on their own.
