Who: The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) and Betway Ltd (Betway)
Where: United Kingdom
When: 3 December 2025
Law stated as at: 16 February 2026
What happened
Betway ran an advert on a social media platform at the time of the 2025 British Grand Prix, showing a rear view of three F1 drivers standing in the grandstand, with Union Jack flags either side of them and the headline “WHO’S THE BEST OF THE BRITS?”. The middle driver had “HAMILTON” across the back of his red overalls, the colour associated with Sir Lewis Hamilton’s F1 team, Ferrari. The Betway logo appeared throughout the ad.
The ad was challenged on the basis that it clearly featured Sir Lewis, who is likely to be of strong appeal to children, and therefore breached the UK Code of Non-broadcast Advertising and Direct and Promotional Marketing on gambling advertising.
Betway did not dispute that Hamilton has strong appeal to under 18s. Instead, the company argued that: (i) he was presented in a way that limited his appeal; and (ii) the ad ran for a limited time with settings targeting it to over 25s only.
CAP guidance is that persons used in gambling ads are assessed on the basis of their profile and relevance outside the context of the ad, and their appearance and behaviour in the gambling ad. The image in the ad was a back-of-head shot with no visible face, which Betway stated was intentional to make the image less relatable to under 18s, and that his overall presence in the ad was minimal. Nevertheless, the ASA considered that consumers would recognise the Hamilton name, especially in the context of a racing track and Union Jack flags, and that Hamilton would be widely recognised due to his career success. Hamilton had 1.6 million under-18 followers across two social media platforms, which the ASA said was an indicator of strong appeal to under 18s, even where the number is a small proportion of the total followers. Therefore, the ASA found that the ad featured Hamilton who, due to his public profile and number of social media followers, has a strong appeal to under 18s.
Betway relied on the fact that it used the targeting tools on the social media platform so the ad would only be shown to over 25s. It showed that 95% of the engagement on the ad came from over 45s. The ASA said that social media platforms at the time relied on self-declaration of age. It also took into account Ofcom reports as part of its assessment and considered that, given the evidence in them, it was likely that many under 18s had misreported their ages to use these platforms. Therefore, the platform targeting measure was not enough to prevent the ad from being viewed by under 18s.
The ASA upheld the complaint and found that the ad breached the rules on gambling advertising as it featured a person of strong appeal to under 18s and appeared where under 18s could not be entirely excluded from the audience.
Why this matters
If gambling operators or their advertisers wish to feature personalities who may have strong appeal to under 18s in their marketing, this must only be done in robust, age-verified environments, or not at all. Platform age-targeting tools are insufficient on their own to exclude under 18s where the platform does not operate a robust age-verification system.
Household names and prominent sports personalities should be treated as off-limits. Creative techniques such as obscuring a personality’s face or limiting their screen time will not prevent a breach of the gambling advertising rules if the individual remains identifiable. Advertisers should hold sufficient data, such as social media follower demographics broken down by age, and consider wider factors relating to a personality’s public profile, to justify why any individual featured in an ad does not have strong appeal to under 18s.
