888Casino ads ruled misleading


Wednesday November 27 ,2013 : ASA NIXES NETPLAY AND 888 ADS
 
Both ruled misleading
 
Cassava Enterprises found itself on the UK Advertising Standards Authorities agenda again for the second consecutive week, this time for a 888.com website ad featuring a promotional game called Wild Gambler
 
The game invited users play in demo mode using free spins before parting with their real-money.  The complainant maintained that, in demo mode, every other spin gave a substantial win, but challenged whether that was the case when users played with real money.
 
Cassava responded that the free play game was a very basic game designed to give consumers a sense of the look and feel of the Wild Gambler game itself and that it wasn't governed by an RNG or any complex algorithms as the real-money game would be.
 
The ASA considered that the ad was insufficiently clear that the demo mode was provided as an example of the promotional game's visuals only, but did not also represent the likelihood of winning or losing, concluding that the ad was likely to mislead.
 
In the case of Netplay, a voiceover in a TV ad promoting Supercasino.com's live roulette says "Go straight up for a 35 to 1 return or choose red or black for odds of 1 to 1".
 
The challenge, lodged by three complainants who believed the ad to be misleading, was upheld by the ASA who considered the claim to be ambiguous and ruled that the ad may not be broadcast again in its current form.