British children are being bombarded by gambling ads and images online, in what appears to be a blatant breach of government legislation.
Cartoon-style imagery can frequently be seen in online gambling games, despite firms being explicitly banned from using or producing content that is likely to have strong appeal to children, or targeting children with ads or promotions.
Industry-funded charity GambleAware has warned that games with such graphics are likely to be strongly appealing to children, with 32Red’s ‘Fat Frogs’ featuring ‘cutesy’ cartoon frogs and language such as “take a dip” and “ribbiting rascals”.
In a bid to tackle the issue, the charity has proposed new regulations to the limit the amount of gambling ads seen by children, after alarming research indicating that they struggled to differentiate between gambling products and gaming content such as online games with in-app purchases.
“The grey area between online gambling and gambling-like gaming is confusing, especially for younger children and blurs the lines between what is and isn’t gambling,” said Sherbert Research MD, Nicki Karet.
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“This grey area is further confusing because gambling advertising, particularly online, often uses visuals and tonal expressions that can be seen to directly target children, such as cartoon graphics, bright colours and sounds.”
A report released by the charity has found that young people believe their online experience to be ‘saturated’ with betting promotions and content, and that a wider-definition of the term may need to include all games that have an element of betting – such as loot boxes or free fruit-machine slot games – to make a tangible difference.
In recent, the Advertising Standards Authority has acted to upheld several complaints against betting brands that have variously used Father Christmas, Spider-Man and Mr.Monopoly in their ads.
Responding to the findings, the Betting and Gaming Council added: “Our members enforce strict age verification on all their products [and] have also introduced new age gating rules for advertising on social media platforms.
“Recent data from the Gambling Commission published last year showed young people’s exposure to betting adverts and promotions had declined compared to the previous year.
“The government has previously stated research did not establish a causal link between exposure to advertising and the development of problem gamblers.”
