Background
This Ruling forms part of a wider piece of work on gambling ads, identified for investigation following complaints received and intelligence gathered by the ASA.
Ad description
An Instagram post from Betway, seen in November 2025, featured an image of Thierry Henry. Text stated "FOR THE FIRST TIME IN A LONG TIME, I CAN SEE THIS TEAM WINNING THE LEAGUE - NOT JUST AS AN ARSENAL FAN, BUT AS A FOOTBALL FAN AND AN ANALYST [...]". The image included the Betway logo, the text "bet the responsible way", an 18+ symbol and the begambleaware.org logo. The post stated "Thierry Henry talks about Arsenal's squad depth [...] Read our global ambassador's latest interview via the link [...] 18+ GambleAware".
Issue
The complainant, a researcher from the University of Bristol, challenged whether the ad included an individual who was likely to be of strong appeal to under-18s and therefore breached the Code.
Response
Betway Ltd t/a Betway said that, based on Thierry Henry’s age, and public and media profile at that time, they believed he appealed to an adult audience and did not meet the threshold for strong appeal to under-18s in the UK.
Betway said Thierry Henry was a 48-year-old, retired Premier League footballer, who had officially retired from football in 2014 and, with the exception of a short loan to Arsenal in 2012, had left the UK Premier League in 2007 and European Football in 2010. They said he was therefore primarily known among adult football fans rather than the younger generation.
Betway also said that, at the time of the ad, Thierry Henry’s role was focused on adult sports punditry and analysis, primarily for CBS Sports, an American network not available in the UK, rather than for youth channels. They also said that he made occasional, guest appearances in Premier League coverage, rather than being a regular or permanent pundit in the UK, which reduced his visibility to UK under-18s. He was not an e-sports streamer or a youth entertainment personality. Betway said that aligned with earlier ASA Rulings which stated that adult oriented sports and adult majority audiences reduced the likelihood of an individual being of strong appeal to under-18s.
Betway said that, as of 16 December 2025, the only platform on which Thierry Henry maintained an active official presence was Instagram. They had therefore relied on data relating to Instagram, where Thierry Henry had a total global following of 4.32 million; 11% of all his followers were based in the UK; and 177,120 (or 4.1%) of all his followers were under 18 years old. Betway therefore estimated that 11% of 177,120 followers, which equated to 19,483, would be both under 18 and based in the UK. They believed that was significantly under the follower count defined by CAP Guidance as being indicative of strong appeal to under-18s. Betway accepted that there were limitations with their approach, since not all followers would have used their correct age at registration, but they believed UK-specific data was important in their assessment of Thierry Henry’s appeal to youth audiences in the UK.
Betway recognised that CAP Guidance indicated that individuals could be deemed of strong appeal even below the 100,000 benchmark for under-18 followers where other factors, such as viral moments, increased an ad’s likelihood of resonating with under-18s. They said that CBS Sports clips had limited UK relevance. While some CBS Sports studio clips featuring Thierry Henry circulated online, CBS only held Champions League broadcasting rights in the United States. Betway said that its audience was overwhelmingly US based, meaning CBS-originating content did not materially influence Thierry Henry’s UK youth appeal.
Betway said they had also considered the potential for clips from Thierry Henry’s appearances as a pundit on Sky Sports’ Monday Night Football (MNF) to go viral online. His appearances were occasional. He did not have a sustained presence on the programme. They also said that viral moments from MNF, featuring Thierry Henry, tended to centre on tactical analysis and long-form football discussion; formats that appealed to adults rather than to under-18s. Betway believed that while MNF clips would occasionally be shared widely, there was no evidence they created or sustained strong appeal among UK under-18s.
Betway said that it was not possible for them to obtain reliable demographic data on third-party viral posts, such as those shared by media outlets, aggregators or unconnected social accounts: no analytic tools existed that would allow them to view or infer the age or location of viewers with any accuracy. Given the absence of such data and the adult-skewed nature of both CBS Sports and MNF content, they believed there was no reasonable basis on which to conclude that such virality translated into resonance with UK under-18s.
Assessment
Not upheld
The ASA first considered whether the post was advertising and therefore fell within the scope of the CAP Code. Paragraph I(h) of the Scope of the Code stated that the Code applied to “advertisements and other marketing communications by or from companies, organisations or sole traders on their own websites, or in other non-paid-for space online under their control, that [were] directly connected with the supply or transfer of goods, services, opportunities and gifts, or which consist[ed] of direct solicitations of donations as part of their own fund-raising activities”.
The post appeared in non-paid-for space online under Betway’s control and referred to the possibility of Arsenal winning the Premier League. We understood that Betway offered bets on Premier League football matches. The image included the Betway logo, text which stated "bet the responsible way", an 18+ symbol and the begambleaware.org logo. We considered the purpose of the post was to promote Betway’s gambling services through generating interest in which team would win the Premier League. It was therefore directly connected with the supply of betting services and was an ad falling within the scope of the CAP Code.
We then considered whether the ad breached the Code.
The CAP Code stated that marketing communications for gambling products must not be likely to be of strong appeal to children or young persons, or to include a person who is likely to be of strong appeal to those under 18 years old. CAP Guidance stated that personalities and brand ambassadors would be assessed both on the basis of their profile and relevance outside the context of gambling ads, and their appearance and behaviour in the ads. The ASA expected advertisers to provide evidence that they had identified what persons or characters were generally known for outside the context of an ad, and had used appropriate sources of data and information to assess their likely level of appeal to under-18s.
We assessed whether Thierry Henry was likely to be of strong appeal to UK under-18s. He was a retired footballer, considered a prolific goal scorer. He had played for the French national team, including winning the 1998 FIFA World Cup, and for Arsenal in the Premier League, where he achieved a club record for scoring goals. While Thierry Henry had received the Lifetime Achievement award at BBC Sports Personality of the Year as recently as 2025, we acknowledged that he had not played professionally for over 10 years. With the exception of a short loan to Arsenal in 2012, Thierry Henry had left the Premier League in 2007. We therefore considered that he would not have been of strong appeal to under-18s because of his career as a footballer at the time the ad was seen and that he was more likely to be recognised as a TV sports pundit.
CAP Guidance stated that retired footballers who had moved into punditry would be assessed on the basis of their social and other media profile. We therefore assessed the appeal he was likely to have based on his punditry. We understood that it was primarily for CBS Sports, an American network not available in the UK. He also made guest appearances on Sky Sports’ MNF Premier League coverage. We considered live Premier League games could be of strong appeal to UK under-18s. However, we also considered that Thierry Henry’s role as one of a group of pundits, whose discussion of performance and tactics was at a remove from the game, would not hold the same interest for young people as players and managers. We therefore considered that his TV appearances were unlikely to make Thierry Henry of strong appeal to under-18s.
CAP Guidance classed anyone with a significant under-18 following on social media as high risk of being of strong appeal to under-18s. We therefore next assessed how likely it was that Thierry Henry would have appealed strongly to UK under-18s based on his social-media profile. We understood from the information provided by Betway that Thierry Henry was only active on Instagram and that his account had 4.32 million followers. We considered that a high number of total followers, in the millions in this instance, could indicate an increased risk of a large social media following of under-18s in the UK, even where that was a small proportion of the total. CAP Guidance stated that one rule of thumb was that at least a total of 100,000 social-media follower accounts registered to people under-18, across social media platforms, was indicative of strong appeal and that marketers should exercise particular caution in the absence of UK specific data.
In estimating that of Thierry Henry’s 177,120 under-18 followers only 19,483 were based in the UK, Betway had relied on the assumption that the percentage of followers in the UK who were under 18 would be consistent with the percentage of his global following in that age group. In the absence of more accurate data or a reason to assume that Thierry Henry’s UK under-18 following would comprise a disproportionately high percentage of his overall under-18 following globally, we considered that to be a reasonable means of estimation. We acknowledged that there was scope for error in such an estimate, for example not all followers would have used their correct age at registration and the actual number of UK under-18 followers could have been higher than the 19,483 estimated, but we considered that this error would need to be considerable for the number of UK under-18 followers to be near the 100,000 rule of thumb. We therefore considered that Thierry Henry’s social-media profile was unlikely to indicate that he was of strong appeal to under-18s.
CAP Guidance stated that a personality could be of strong appeal even if they had fewer than a total of 100,000 follower accounts registered to under-18s across platforms depending on other factors relevant to their appeal to young people. Marketers should consider social media more broadly when considering if someone was likely to be of strong appeal to under-18s. Marketers should consider, for example, the extent to which a viral moment made an ad more likely to be of strong appeal. We therefore considered the extent to which viral moments would show that Thierry Henry was likely to be of strong appeal to UK under-18s. We understood that, while CBS Sports held Champions League broadcasting rights only and was not available in the UK, and Thierry Henry appeared occasionally, rather than routinely, as a pundit on the Premier League on Sky Sports’ MNF, he did feature in a number of clips from both, some of which went viral and had millions of views. However, we considered, that Thierry Henry’s largely non-UK social-media following would mean that many of those views would have been from outside the UK.
We understood that some of the clips, which sought to promote punditry and match-analysis programmes, involved humorous moments with Thierry Henry and others’ appearances on CBS and MNF. However, we considered that the clips did not exclusively centre on humour, but also involved match analysis and punditry, which were also the main focus of the programmes from which the viral moments came. We therefore considered that such viral clips involving Thierry Henry were unlikely to make him of strong appeal to under-18s.
For those reasons, we concluded that the ad was not of strong appeal to people aged under 18.
We investigated the ad under CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 16.1, 16.3 and 16.3.12 (Gambling), but did not find it in breach.
Action
No further action necessary.
