Coral hit with ASA ad ban for child-friendly slots content
ASA says industry has responded well to new guidelines on child-friendly content despite sanctions in May and June
Coral is the latest operator to fall foul of Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) rules on gambling material appealing to under 18s.
The Gibraltar-based operator had three slots adverts banned by the regulator for using child-friendly graphics on its games, including Rainbow Riches, Fishin’ Frenzy and Lucky Wizard.
Rainbow Riches showed an animated image of a rainbow and a leprechaun, Fishin’ Frenzy displayed cartoon fish swimming in the ocean and Lucky Wizard portrayed a stylised wizard graphic.
One complainant challenged that all three games would be of particular appeal to under 18s.
Coral argued that Rainbow Riches was unlikely to appeal more strongly to children and young persons than it would to adults, and that none of the fish in Fishin’ Frenzy could be associated with characters from animated films.
The operator also made a case that the wizard in Lucky Wizard was drawn in generic and understated form and was therefore less likely to appeal to children or young people.
The ASA disagreed on all three fronts and ruled that the adverts for Rainbow Riches, Fishin’ Frenzy and Lucky Wizard must not be shown again in their current form.
M88.com, Fun88 and Letou all received similar sanctions in May after the Campaign for Fairer Gambling highlighted their child-friendly slots adverts as “dangerous”.
Despite ASA rulings against operators in May and June, ASA director Shahriar Coupal recently told EGR Marketing: “There have been a couple of rulings that have helped to iron out more borderline issues around whether content targets under 18s, but our view is that the industry has responded well to it and they are taking it seriously.
“There will always be borderline issues where the regulator disagrees with operators but we are not seeing the kind of egregious content that clearly appeals to under 18s that we saw beforehand, so that is a really good sign. Certainly on that issue we don’t see any slipping back to old habits.
“If you wind back to November and think about the scale of breaches, we are nowhere near that, but that is not to say that operators from time to time like to remind us of where we were,” he added.