The UK Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) has issued rulings on gambling ads from Play’n GO and Mecca Bingo.
The ASA, the UK’s independent regulator of advertising across all media, has ruled that, in two cases where companies were accused of appealing to those under the age of 18, Play’n GO were in breach of codes forbidding that, but Mecca Bingo was not. The two companies both received complaints that they had run ads that would appeal strongly to people under 18 years of age.
As part of the ASA’s role of ensuring that ads adhere to the Advertising Codes, the organization stepped in to evaluate. These codes, written by the Committees of Advertising Practice (CAP), aim to make all UK advertising responsible and fair to both advertisers and consumers and include restrictions about showing harmful content, like advertising gambling, to under-18s.
The ASA’s ruling
In the case of Play’n GO, which provides gambling software to the industry and is licensed by the Gambling Commission, the company put out three ads besides email inboxes, featuring a cartoon Easter bunny in a superhero outfit, a cartoon robot DJ with a purple screen for a face, and three anime-style, cartoon princesses.
“We…considered that Play’n GO Malta had not excluded under-18s from the audience with the highest level of accuracy required for gambling ads, the content of which was likely to appeal strongly to that age group,” reads the statement from the ASA. “For those reasons, we concluded that the ads were irresponsible and breached the Code.”
The ASA told Play’n GO that the ads couldn’t exist in that form and warned them not to include imagery that was likely to have a strong appeal to those under 18 years of age in their ads in future.
For Mecca Bingo, the company shared a post to Facebook post in May 2025, with the caption “NAME THE TOM HANKS FILMS”. It then featured 10 separate films, explained using emojis, including ones of a teddy bear, a child’s face, a mermaid, a rocket, and an aeroplane. Although some of these emojis were childish in nature, the regulator did not deem them to be in breach of code.
“There were 32 emojis in total, with the vast majority showing everyday objects or symbols,” the ruling reads. “We considered that, in the context of a puzzle game requiring people to name a broad spectrum of films, the range and use of emojis were unlikely to have strong appeal to children or young people by reflecting or being associated with youth culture.”
The ASA takes content that could appeal to children seriously, having examined concerns around the impact of gambling memes on young people towards the end of last year.
Featured image: Geograph, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
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