Ad description

A website for 888sport, www.888sport.com, which included a page headed "BagBigOdds". Text on the page stated "Arsenal to win in 90 minutes 3/1", underneath which was a large button labelled "BET NOW". Below this button further text stated "1 Join now Open your account 2 Bet on Arsenal At the normal odds 3 Extra winnings Added the day after settlement". At the foot of the page was a link to the terms and conditions of the promotion.

Issue

The complainant, who understood that the enhanced odds were only applied to the first £10 of any stake and that any remainder would be paid at the rate of the standard odds, challenged whether the ad misleadingly omitted a significant condition.

Response

Cassava Enterprises (Gibraltar) Ltd t/a 888sport.com stated that all the conditions of the promotion were displayed in the terms and conditions available within one click of the page, and that these included the phrase "Maximum stake for enhanced odds is £10. If you place a bet of more than £10, the remainder of the stake will be paid at normal odds". They stated that when they created the offer they believed this to be a sufficient way of displaying the information, but following contact from the ASA they had taken steps to amend their marketing to clarify the maximum stake and provided an example of this.

Assessment

Upheld

The ASA acknowledged that the terms and conditions of the offer made clear the maximum stake and what would happen to any amount that exceeded it. However, we considered that this was a significant condition that would affect whether or not consumers decided to take up the offer, and that it should therefore have been disclosed in the ad. We noted that, as the ad was a page on 888sport's own website, it was not significantly limited by time or space and that any significant conditions of the offer should therefore have been stated clearly within the body of the ad itself. Because 888sport had not done this, we concluded that the ad was misleading.

The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules  3.1 3.1 Marketing communications must not materially mislead or be likely to do so.  and  3.3 3.3 Marketing communications must not mislead the consumer by omitting material information. They must not mislead by hiding material information or presenting it in an unclear, unintelligible, ambiguous or untimely manner.
Material information is information that the consumer needs to make informed decisions in relation to a product. Whether the omission or presentation of material information is likely to mislead the consumer depends on the context, the medium and, if the medium of the marketing communication is constrained by time or space, the measures that the marketer takes to make that information available to the consumer by other means.
 (Misleading Advertising),  3.9 3.9 Marketing communications must state significant limitations and qualifications. Qualifications may clarify but must not contradict the claims that they qualify.  and  3.10 3.10 Qualifications must be presented clearly.
CAP has published a Help Note on Claims that Require Qualification.
 (Qualification) and  8.18 8.18 Marketing communications that include a promotion and are significantly limited by time or space must include as much information about significant conditions as practicable and must direct consumers clearly to an easily accessible alternative source where all the significant conditions of the promotion are prominently stated. Participants should be able to retain those conditions or easily access them throughout the promotion.  (Significant Conditions for Promotions).

Action

The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told Cassava Enterprises (Gibraltar) Ltd to ensure that future ads made clear significant conditions.

CAP Code (Edition 12)

3.1     3.10     3.3     3.9     8.18    


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