Responding to a complaint about the advert, which went live on 18 September, the ASA told Dribble Media, the group that owns esports betting platform Midnite “not to portray, condone or encourage gambling behaviour that was socially irresponsible or could lead to financial, social or emotional harm.”
The advert, which was originally placed on Facebook, failed to comply with the ASA’s policies for social media placements, with some of the language used to describe gambling labelled inappropriate. In particular, the watchdog took issue with “hooked on CS:GO bets,” which portrayed an addiction to gambling in a positive light, and “making the craaaaaziest [sic] calls,” which presented reckless betting techniques.
In a statement, the ASA commented: “Because we considered that the ad condoned and encouraged betting in ways that could be financially, socially or emotionally harmful, by associating it with problem gambling, we concluded that the ad was irresponsible.”
Dribble Media accepted the ruling of the watchdog and explained that the third-party hired to create the adverts on its behalf had failed to live up to their high standards of advertising. It maintained the company would no longer work with the agency in question.
Midnite, which is based out of London, was founded by executives from GVC Holdings (now Entain) and Betfair (now part of Flutter Entertainment) and is backed by the likes of KM Capital.
