Who: Advertising Standards Authority (ASA); LeoVegas Gaming plc t/a BetUK; Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice (BCAP)
Where: United Kingdom
When: 13 March 2024
Law stated as at: 15 April 2024
What happened:
The ASA has published a fresh ruling which adds further guidance around the use of individuals in gambling ads and whether they are likely to be of strong appeal to under 18s, which is prohibited following the new rules which came into force in October 2022.
The latest individual in contention is retired footballer Adebayo Akinfewa (aka “The Beast”), who featured in a BetUK advert aired on 27 September 2023 as a brand ambassador. BetUK argued that Mr Akinfewa is not an individual who is likely to strongly appeal to under 18s and, therefore, was compliant with the joint CAP and BCAP advertising guidance on “Gambling and lotteries advertising: protecting under-18s” because:
- Mr Akinfewa is 41 years old and retired in May 2022.
- During his career, he played in League One and League Two clubs, with a brief amount of time in the Championships, so never had a “star player” profile.
- As he never played in the Premier League, BetUK considered that his appeal to under 18s was “low risk” in accordance with BCAP guidance.
- BetUK deemed Mr Akinfewa’s endeavours outside of football, which include owning a clothing brand, were not likely to strongly appeal to under 18s.
ASA assessment
The ASA acknowledged that Mr Akinfewa never played for a club in the Premier League nor for any prominent clubs abroad, which under BCAP guidance means his football career places him in the “lower risk” category. However, BCAP guidance also holds that non-top league players can also be a “moderate risk” based on their social media followings. In addition, anyone with significant numbers of under 18 followers on social media are of “high risk” of appealing strongly to children.
The ASA assessed Mr Akinfewa’s appeal to under 18s based on his media and social profiles, looking at factors including:
General media presence
- Mr Akinfewa is well-known among football fans due to his physical strength. In various editions of the FIFA videogame, he was ranked as the strongest player and adopted the nickname “The Beast”. His strength was documented further in Amazon Prime documentary, Beast Mode On, which aired in 2022.
- All of this demonstrated that he is unusually well known for a former lower league footballer, which placed him in the “moderate risk” category of the guidance.
Social media presence
- BCAP guidance states that: “… a generally high social media following that attracts a significant absolute number of under-18 followers, as determined through quantitative or qualitative analysis, is likely to be considered an indicator of ‘strong’ appeal“.
- ASA looked at a quantitative analysis of his followers and found that 8% of his 1.3 million followers on one social media platform and 13% of his 312,000 followers on another platform were registered as under 18, amounting to a total of around 157,000 under-18 followers. The true total figure was likely a lot higher in the absence of data for other platforms. This figure was deemed to be a significant number in absolute terms and so the ASA considered Mr Akinfewa was likely to be of strong appeal to under 18s and should be placed in the “high risk” category.
Why this matters:
The ruling demonstrates the weight the ASA places on social media statistics and – particularly – the actual number of followers who are under 18 (as in the Gary Neville ruling). Compare this with a recent ruling on adverts featuring Peter Crouch, which were subject to a complaint that Crouch was likely to be of strong appeal to under 18s. Even though Crouch is a former Premier League footballer, Paddy Power used his social media demographics to evidence that Crouch did not have a strong fanbase of under 18s, and the ASA considered that the advert was not in breach. This shows that gambling advertisers who don’t want to score an own goal should always analyse social media statistics and actual numbers of followers who are under 18 when choosing who to feature in their adverts.
