Ad description
A TV ad for SJU Ltd featured a voice-over that stated, “This is a fence. The kind you’ll find at most race courses. But this fence is more important than the others. Because this is the last fence. Where a single jump could make all the difference and if you have a bet, you’ll be jumping too. Visit stanjames.com. The best odds guaranteed …”.
The ad featured small print at the bottom of the screen that stated “Best Odds Guaranteed available to new and existing customers, terms and exclusions apply …”. On-screen graphics at the end stated “OUR BEST ODDS GUARANTEED”.
Issue
The complainant, who understood that the “best odds guaranteed” offer only applied to bets placed after 10.00 am, challenged whether the ad omitted material information.
Response
SJU Ltd stated that the qualifications around the Best Odds Guaranteed (BOG) promotion were, by their nature, relatively lengthy and complicated. The full list of qualifications currently ran to 95 words, which stated: “Our Best Odds Guaranteed offer is available to customers that opt-in and is available daily on all UK and Ireland horse racing bets placed after 10.00 UK time. It applies to single and multiple bets struck online, on mobile and call centre at early prices and up to twenty five thousand pounds (£25,000.00) per customer per day (minimum bet of £20 required to qualify for call centre bets). The offer is not available on board prices, ante-post, non-runner no bet, tote/ pari-mutuel (bets and dividends), not to win, enhanced win, cover bets and in-play bets”.
SJU considered it was not consumer friendly to include all of the qualifications in the TV ad. Furthermore, it was not feasible to do so because of the limited time and space available. They referred to the CAP Gambling Advertising Guidance (non-broadcast and broadcast), quoting the text “Where the ad is limited by time or space (for example a banner ad), significant conditions likely to affect a consumer's decision to participate in promotions should be displayed no further than one click away from the ad itself. If the significant conditions are not displayed with sufficient prominence, the ad will be seen as misleading”. Taking that into consideration, SJU took the approach to flag the qualifications in other media promoting their BOG offer.
SJU stated that the qualifications were clearly displayed on the sports, racing, race cards and promotions home pages, so that consumers were not able to place a horseracing bet without several opportunities to see the full qualifications. Examples to demonstrate this were provided.
SJU stated that their BOG would be given to consumers if their bet was placed after 10.00 am and made on the day of the actual race, which they stated was the standard in the UK gambling industry. Furthermore, this was the only complaint that they had received, during the period in which the ad was broadcast, a period in excess of two years.
Clearcast understood that most bookmakers had a similar policy when it came to BOG. They believed that the fact that a bet could not be placed before 10.00 am would be a familiar condition for those who regularly gambled and that new customers would discover this when reading through the terms and conditions for the first time before placing a bet.
Whilst Clearcast acknowledged that not being able to place a bet before 10.00 am was a restriction, they believed that it was not a material condition that would prevent a customer from placing a bet outright, such as having to be over the age of 18, or being a new customer. Therefore, they did not consider it was mandatory for such a restriction to be communicated in the ad, because omitting it would not materially mislead or affect a customer’s likelihood of participating in the promotion.
Clearcast stated that the legal text “Terms and conditions apply” indicated to customers that the full terms and conditions had not been provided in the ad itself and that before proceeding with a bet, it would be necessary to study the full terms and conditions in their entirety. Clearcast believed that this was sufficient to alert customers to the more exhaustive list of terms and conditions that applied and that all significant limitations and qualifications had been conveyed sufficiently in the voice-over itself or clarified in the legally imposed supers.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA understood that BOG applied when consumers took an early price or a fixed odds price for their selected horse in a particular race, but would be paid out at the biggest odds if the starting price (the odds for a horse declared at the start of a race) were greater.
We considered that consumers would understand from the voice-over, small print and on-screen graphics that the ad was promoting SJU’s BOG and that terms and conditions applied. However, given that no significant conditions were included in the ad we considered that consumers would also understand that there were no major restrictions to the offer, and that they could place their bet at any time and day to receive SJU’s BOG.
However, we understood that SJU’s BOG applied to bets placed after 10.00 am, which we considered was a significant condition that would affect a consumer’s understanding of how they could take advantage of the offer.
We understood that consumers were able to place advanced bets on races that took place the following day, but that SJU’s BOG would not apply. This was because the BOG was also contingent upon the bet being made on the day of the actual race, which we considered was also material information that should have been included in the ad.
We considered that the omission of significant conditions that would alter consumers’ understanding of an offer from the ad was likely to mislead. We noted the advertiser’s reference to CAP guidance that stated that significant conditions might not be needed to be included in an ad, and could be provided by other means where an ad was limited by time or space; however, we did not consider that the ad was limited by time or space.
The ad’s voice-over had specifically stated “Visit stanjames.com” and featured the small print “terms and exclusions apply …”. Whilst we noted that the home page of SJU’s website stated that their BOG applied to bets placed after 10.00 am, because we considered that this, along with the requirement for the bet to be made on the same day of the race, was material information which would affect viewers understanding of how they could receive SJU’s BOG, it needed to be made clear in the TV ad before they proceeded with their consumer journey by visiting the stanjames.com website.
However, such significant conditions had not been included in the TV ad and we therefore concluded that it had omitted material information and was likely to mislead consumers’ understanding of what was required to qualify for SJU’s BOG.
The ad breached BCAP Code rules 3.1 (Misleading advertising) and 3.10 (Qualification).
Action
The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told SJU Ltd that their future promotions must include significant conditions to the offer, including applicable timing restrictions on qualifying bets.
