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Gambling adverts - the screw tightens further...
Tikay10
Member, Administrator, Moderator Posts: 160,524
in Poker Chat
Thoughts on this?
Footballers and celebrities to be banned from gambling adverts under new rules
https://news.sky.com/story/footballers-and-celebrities-to-be-banned-from-gambling-adverts-under-new-rules-12582601?dcmp=snt-sf-twitter
Comments
Be interested to hear the views of Mr Channing too. @NChanning
There need to be appropriate weight given to those former sports/reality stars who genuinely know about gambling, poker etc.
But it does rather annoy me when gambling sites get promoted via someone who is famous, but knows naff all about what he is promoting.
To give an example close to home. Neymar and Pokerstars.
Although it would be a little strange expecting Stars to reshoot an advert purely for the British market.
PS-anything that stops some mockney geezer saying "innervaaaatin" has to be a good thing
That will be difficult IMO. Do they become a Celebrity after they are featured on the Advert viewed by millions? Are the actors doing the adverts celebrities in their own right?
But in my opinion its not who or what is in the advert that the problem is how its distributed. My 11 year old Daughter recently got her first phone. Its been set up so every Game/App she downloads i get sent a notification and have to verify and give the okay before it downloads. I did this to prevent content like this being accessible to her, and yet while playing games such as piano tiles or Roblox shes bombarded with adverts for slot machines and others of the sort.
I also think we have to look at how people get to the stage of idolizing people to the point that if they advertise something then we have to copy that. as for me that's a deep rooted issue in itself and can be much more dangerous than gambling.
I can't think of a single instance where a "celebrity" advertising a Product has tempted me to go buy, or use, that Product.
In fact, it often has the opposite effect. When I see, say, Harry "I'll do anything for Money" Redknapp advertising something, it actually turns me against whatever he's promoting this week, because, let's face it, he's hardly a squeaky clean wholesome character, is he?
But, while it remains the case that people do idolise such people, then steps need to be taken. There has to be a balance between protecting the vulnerable, and letting the majority live their life.
2 very quick points on similar topics:-
1. Can they please ban adverts that are irrelevant. The car that can't be bought in the UK. The "computer game" where the small print says this is not actually the game at all
2. There is a need for information, and advertising can do that. So-for example-how likely those free spins will result in actual money, the actual amount raked in from the £1 entries on Millionaire/Dickinson's real Deal, etc.
It would be much better to concentrate on inappropriate advertising, like to kids. Alcohol ads show the way forward.
"The "computer game" where the small print says this is not actually the game at all"
Isn't that bizarre?
"This is not what you are buying" (or words to that effect) in little letters at the bottom of the screen. This is the stuff that needs banning.
Often it never really turns out to be an accurate reflection of what is being claimed/advertised
Additionally, and more importantly, nobody advertises without initial/follow up research on the power and pull of an advert. I’ve personally sat in on such ‘debriefs’ with members of the public. Not for gambling but the premise is the same. How did you find this product? What persuaded you to acquire/buy/join etc etc. What does this image portray to you? Would you be more likely to buy/join/acquire if X featured instead of Y?
I’ve sat in on discussions at the very start of campaigns being proposed with the agencies too. “Can we utilise the ‘talent’ that is under contract/paid for other services” is often the first question from agencies when coming up with ideas.
Heck, they even demonstrate the importance of such research on The Apprentice as being basic.
Then you had this cut screen to people celebrating like crazy with tears down their cheeks.
In general I do not have any issues with gambling advertising however this was particularly insidious as the whole thing was clearly targeted at financially desperate people. the idea been that someone who is desperate financially sees this and pictures themselves wildly celebrating with their partner as they win their way out of debt.
That is an extreme low where I was saying this should not be allowed as an ad.
Further game itself had heros who you summoned for which cost ingame currency where you had a chance to get a five star hero but this was only 3% chance and then their was a pool of five star heros so you were very unlikely to get the one you needed/wanted.
there were people spending thousands on this and in some I hope rare cases people losing their houses. on top of this they would then edit the hero to nerf him down and then release a costume version of the hero where you could re summon to get the original hero you had already spent money summoning for the first time.
There was one case where a guy in our alliance kept having multiple versions of rare hero's so I worked out based on what i was seeing and worked out a confidence interval that had a minimum of $3000 a month! I cannot remember whether I worked with a 95% confidence interval or a 99% confidence interval. The guy claimed he had only spent $100 which was literally impossible.
It came out he had an argument with his wife over this, and his response was there was nothing to do round here, I can imagine a wife's response to that "oh you had nothing to do so you wasted thousands of $s on a computer game well theres the washing up theres the laundry etc etc.." She actually got access to his account and came on in the chat asking how much he had been spending I wasnt on and other alliance members covered for him. If I had been on I would have said what I worked out etc.
I believe they split up, whilst our alliance had a no under 18s policy children did play the game as well in other alliances etc. Games like this are peddling gambling addiction to children and are deliberately trying to create gambling addiction. That is one issue the white paper should target.
Btw I quit empires and puzzles some time ago because I disagreed with what they were doing.
He has openly stated that the site he is playing on are paying him $1 million a month to stream on the site. he has not been 100% forthright on the terms of the agreement but he does have a set amount of hours per month and set stakes he has to gamble at.
He often has streams lasting 36-48 hours and staking $1500+ per spin on a slot machine.
He by now has countless clips of himself winning 7+ figures on a single spin, which then get posted and distributed around the net, going viral in mere hours glorifying gambling and then has a 2 second clip saying "this is not the reality of gambling, you will lose"
During some of his streams he has an average viewer count of over 50,000 people, a % of which, will no doubt be sucked in by the wins they see and go place a wager.
Very dangerous in my opinion, especially as the demographic using twitch is young and impressionable.
If a bookmaker ran an advert which said "best odds guaranteed" well at least until we identify you as a gambler who takes value, knows what you're doing and doesn't fit our profile, then you can have very restricted stakes.
That's the problem, they will advertise how they average a 30% bigger payout on an acca without stating that an acca is a mug bet for long term ROI.
THE BETTING INDUSTRY CANNOT SURVIVE WITHOUT PROBLEM / PERSISTANT GAMBLERS.
If everyone was savvy about the under / over round and made choices based on value the industry would see it's profits shrink and shrink.
Speak to anyone in the industry especially those in marketing and ask them to tell you how many emails, texts and calls go to people just coming off a self exclusion list with special welcome back offers.
I'll leave you with an example.
My friend Jez had 6 winning bets from 8 over 2 days with bet365 winning a total of £672 and had an email saying that his betting pattern didn't fit their desireable customer profile and restricted him to £2 singles only.
I have another friend Adey who regularly drops £200/£300 a week with Bet365, yes he has a job paying six figures, and yet his account was recently upgraded to "Enhanced" status which I guess means they will take any bet he wishes to make.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realise that if Ade starts upping his bets he could soon be spending money he shouldn't be.
The ads sell a dream the reality is usually a nightmare.
BAN ALL GAMBLING ADS
If I'm honest it was all this great success in an online free to play poker game which actually got me into real money poker.
Looking back at my history I begun by putting the lottery but I noticed I was never winning cash and it just got more and more frustating, once I tried that free poker game I give up lottery and went onto poker. I'm glad poker has got some skill but the point is the easier it looks to win cash the more addicted people become.
I'm not sure it covers Paul Merson. The news item stated;
The new rules state that sportspeople, celebrities and social media influencers who are "likely to be of strong appeal to children or young persons, especially by reflecting or being associated with youth culture" will be banned from gambling and lottery adverts.
Is Merson a celebrity who appeals to children or young persons"? I don't think he is.
I do agree that Merson is very Marmite. I don't think it's a secret that in addition to his well-chronicled gambling problems, he had a very heavy hard-drug dependency too.
I find him a difficult watch, but as @TVSpice noted yesterday - & I believe she has knowledge in how the TV companies think - they would not use him if he did not have broad appeal to their viewers.
I say interestingly because the power of the known name remembered is that of Merson even though he has not been seen anywhere for such a time. Perhaps because the stupidity of including him in the first place was why his name/face was remembered?