The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has warned Ladbrokes over its marketing as an investigation determined that two tweets relating to the Premier League could have a strong appeal to under 18s.
Entain-owned Ladbrokes promoted the two tweets in January and February of 2023.
The first tweet included images of Premier League manager Eddie Howe comparing his Premier League positions in the 2022 and 2023 seasons. The second tweet featured four Premier League managers – David Moyes, Frank Lampard, Brendan Rodgers and Gary O’Neil – and offered odds on which manager would be the next to leave their role.
According to the ASA’s advertising code, both tweets breached rules as they have strong appeal to minors.
The decision comes a week after the ASA warned Ladbrokes following a promoted tweet featuring an image of Jake Paul after his defeat by Tommy Fury. In that case, the ASA also ruled that the tweet had a strong appeal to minors.
Ladbrokes argued once again that Twitter’s age gating would limit exposure of its tweets to minors and that 0% of its targeted audience were under the age of 25. However, the ASA ruled that the success or failure of a Premier League football manager was of interest to a much wider target audience than that company suggested stating that:
“Managers of top clubs were likely to appeal strongly to children.”
It also found that Twitter’s self age verification process was not robust enough and that there could be a number of users within the company’s target audience who were in fact under the age of 18.
Ladbrokes has been warned that the ads must not appear again and that any future marketing must not include people who may appeal to minors.
This is the second time that Ladrokes has been warned over promoted tweets during the 2022/23 season. In December of 2022, the regulator ruled that a tweet by Ladbrokes which included a video featuring Premier League footballers Philippe Coutinho, Jesse Lingard and Kalidou Koulibaly breached the advertising code as all players were featured next to a prominent Ladbrokes logo.
Olivia has worked as an editor and writer for major brands across multiple niches. She now focuses on the iGaming and sports betting industries.