On 14 October, the Committee of Advertising Practice (“CAP”) and Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice (“BCAP”) announced that they have updated their guidance on protecting under-18s in gambling and lotteries advertising (the “Guidance”) (link here).

The stated aim of the amendments to the Guidance is to provide clarity on the “strong” appeal test, which replaced the less strict test of “particular” appeal in 2022. 

Through a series of recent rulings, a review of research and stakeholder input, the CAP and BCAP have developed a practical understanding of the strong appeal test which the new amendments to the Guidance seek to reflect. However, although the additional guidance is helpful in providing more context to the ASA’s decision-making process, this remains a complex area. 

Social Media

The Guidance now provides additional detail on the role of social media to reflect the evolving marketing landscape. It has now introduced a “rule of thumb” that:

“at least a total of 100,000 social media follower accounts registered to people under-18, across social media platforms, is indicative of strong appeal.”

However, the Guidance clarifies that this is at most a rule of thumb and that, depending on other factors relevant to their appeal to young people, the ASA may deem a personality to be of strong appeal even if they have fewer than 100,000 under-18 followers. The Guidance also notes that the number of under-18 followers is likely to be significantly more than the social media accounts registered to under-18s which follow them, since a large number of under-18s register on social media with an adult age. This means that this “rule of thumb” should still only form part of the picture an advertiser builds in relation to a personality intended to be used in gambling advertising. 

“Adult-centric” Sports 

The Guidance also provides further clarifications on what is meant by “adult-centric” and “non-adult-centric” sports. The amended Guidance explains that a sport is “adult-centric” if there is no evidence of significant participation or viewership amongst under-18s. According to the Guidance, sports like cricket and rugby are more likely to be adult-centric whilst eSports and football are likely to be “non-adult-centric” and therefore of strong appeal. However, just because a sport is “adult-centric” does not mean the national teams or particular tournaments/events won’t be of strong appeal. Once again, this means that this element should only ever be one factor considered by advertisers in the round, and can never be determinative on its own. 

In our view, the key takeaway here is that deciding whether or not an ad will be of particular appeal remains anything but straightforward. Advertisers should continue to consider each ad on a case-by-case basis and, crucially, ensure that proper records are kept on how a decision was reached. The updated Guidance can be found here.