ASA Adjudication on Centaur Global Ltd

Ad

An ad in the trade press, for Centaur Global's betting tipster service, was headlined "7 YEARS OF PROFIT"; text stated "NO ONE IN RACING OFFERS: OUR PERFORMANCE 7 YEARS TRADING - 7 YEARS PROFIT OUR TRANSPARENCY LOOK AT OUR WEBSITE IT SHOWS THE HIGHS AND LOWS ... It has been a well documented difficult year for tipping services across the UK But CENTAUR at this point in December are £7,754 in profit* on level £100 bet Thats [sic] the REAL REASON That EVERY YEAR Our Customers REJOIN & WIN *Figures verified by independant [sic] accountants No other tipping service allows such scrutiny of it's [sic] books. ASK YOURSELF WHY? CHECK 7 YEARS RESULTS ONLINE … ALL OUR BETS ARE PROOFED IN ADVANCE TO RACING POST AND TO CLB COOPERS THIS MEANS WE CANNOT LIE TO YOU IN THESE ADVERTS …".

Issue

Isiris Racing Services challenged whether:

1. the claim "7 YEARS OF PROFIT" could be substantiated; and

2. the claims "7 YEARS OF PROFIT", "7 YEARS TRADING - 7 YEARS PROFIT" and "Thats [sic] the REAL REASON That EVERY YEAR Our Customers REJOIN & WIN" were misleading and irresponsible, because they implied that subscribers to Centaur Global's services were very likely or certain to make a profit.

CAP Code

Response

Centaur Global (Centaur) said they offered a number of different services but the ad referred to their main racing service. They pointed out that the result of every selection they had advised to clients for the last five years was recorded on their website. They said every Centaur selection was proofed in advance to the Racing Post and also to CLB Coopers (CLB), a UK accountancy and audit firm. They said CLB undertook a continuous independent verification of the performance stated on the Centaur website.

CLB said they had been proofing the forecasts of Centaur's main racing service since 1 July 2004. They said the selections were sent to them by e-mail on a daily basis and were always sent in advance of the race. They said, at the end of each month, Centaur provided them with a spreadsheet of the results for the month. They said their proofing involved them checking the horse's name on the spreadsheet against the daily selection, the result against the Racing Post website and the odds against an independent bookmaker's fax; they then checked the mathematical accuracy of the profit or loss shown by the spreadsheet. They asserted that any discrepancies were investigated with Centaur and the spreadsheet was updated if necessary; the spreadsheet was then put on Centaur's website. They said they had not given permission for their name to be used in the ad and they had not seen the ad or checked that the information in it was correct.

The Racing Post said Centaur had proofed forecasts to them since July 2000; they sent a screen grab from their ad booking system from 2000 highlighting Centaur's advertising activity. They sent a summary for Centaur for the period August 2002 - December 2006, broken down by year and indicating the annual profit.

They believed there might be some discrepancies between the selections they had sent and those provided by Centaur to the independent third party (CLB), because the monitoring process and the time in which selections were received was subject to individual interpretation and possible variance.  They believed, however, the figures substantiated the profit claims made in the ad.  

Assessment

1. Upheld

The ASA noted Centaur had been proofing their forecasts with the Racing Post since July 2000, a period of six years and five months at the time the ad was published. We also noted they had proofed their forecasts with an independent accountant since July 2004, a period of two years and five months at the time the ad was published.

We noted the ASA had adjudicated in March 2006 that the Racing Post's proofing system had not, at that time, been approved by an independent third party, as required by the CAP Help Note, and considered that it was therefore inappropriate for Centaur to rely on the Racing Post's proofing system to substantiate the claim "7 YEARS OF PROFIT".  We also noted Centaur's proofing of forecasts with the Racing Post and CLB did not span seven consecutive years at the time the ad was published.  We considered that, because they had not proofed their tips with an independent third party in line with the CAP Help Note for seven consecutive years, the claim "7 YEARS OF PROFIT" was misleading.

We requested that CLB send copies of all the e-mails sent by Centaur for seven random months of the period between July 2004, when Centaur started proofing their tips with them, and December 2006, when the ad was published.

We assessed the data and noted the overwhelming majority of forecasts corresponded exactly with Centaurs online spreadsheet of results.  We also noted, for those e-mails which included the time of the race meeting, the e-mails were sent prior to the start of the relevant events, which was confirmed by the electronic date and time stamp in the e-mail headers. We found a few inconsistencies, for example, a bet that had been proofed but not included in the online spreadsheet and vice versa.

We were concerned, however, that a large number of the e-mails we saw did not include the time or location of the race meeting for each proof and it was therefore not apparent whether the proofing e-mail was sent prior to the event starting. We were also concerned that, for only a small number of the proofing e-mails we saw had Centaur included a computer screen capture from a common betting exchange site for each of the listed events that confirmed the availability of the recommended prices in the forecasts. We were therefore unable to confirm the availability of the recommended prices in the forecasts for the majority of the e-mails we saw. We considered, therefore, that Centaur had not shown that their proofing with CLB since July 2004 was robust enough to support a profit claim. We concluded that, because Centaur had not proofed with an independent third party for seven consecutive years, and because they had not shown that their proofing with a third party since July 2004 was sufficiently robust, they had not substantiated the claim "7 YEARS OF PROFIT".

On this point, the ad breached CAP Code clauses 3.1 (Substantiation) and 7.1 (Truthfulness).

2. Upheld

We considered that we had not seen sufficient evidence to support the profit claims. We noted the ad stated "... LOOK AT OUR WEBSITE IT SHOWS THE HIGHS AND LOWS" but considered that, as a whole, it placed excessive emphasis on profits and winning and made inadequate reference to the possibility of tipping losers or losing money.  We considered that the ad misleadingly and irresponsibly implied subscribers to Centaur were very likely or certain to achieve a profit.

On this point, the ad breached CAP Code clauses 2.2 (Responsible advertising) and 7.1 (Truthfulness).

Action

We told Centaur to ensure they had evidence to show that tips had been adequately proofed with an independent third party for the time period stated in future ads. We also told them not to imply subscribers were very likely or certain to make a profit.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)