The Guardian recently ran a report about advertising during the 2018 World Cup and it said that one in five commercials during broadcasts of the tournament were gambling advertisements. It was also reported that the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) received a huge spike in complaints about the amount and nature of gambling advertising during the tournament.
Saturation seemed to be the biggest complaint because, with the timing of matches, there was a lot of pre-watershed advertisements pushed out. Under current regulations, gambling advertisements are allowed pre-watershed, but Ladbrokes Coral have announced that they would be “supportive” of changes.
GambleAware chief executive Marc Etches said there were increasing concerns about sports betting becoming “normalised” for children.
Etches said in a statement: “In the absence of evidence, the concern is that this is an adult activity and young people are growing up with it being normalised.
“They get exposed to it on television around sports, advertising online and gambling activities within [computer] games.
“It seems to have gone too far. And for young people growing up there just seems to be a stronger and stronger affiliation between the two [gambling and sport] and I’m wary of that.”
Ladbrokes Coral market director Alexis Zamboglou said that “Sports betting is enjoyed by millions of people across the UK every year and we wanted to make sure that this great sports entertainment product enhanced sports fans’ experience of the World Cup, without diluting our strong commitment to responsible gambling.”
He went on to state that commercials that were produced for Ladbrokes and Coral during the 2018 World Cup “enhanced” the coverage of the football tournament for sports fans.
