Irish advertising regulator pulls 2 TonyBet ads over gambling breach

TonyBet has fallen foul of the Irish Advertising Standards Authority (IASA) after two sponsored ads on YouTube were found to be in breach of advertising regulations.

The advertising authority ruled that the two adverts in question featured content which promoted gambling as a means of resolving personal and financial difficulties. One complainant argued that the content had ‘targeted vulnerable individuals and perpetuated dangerous stereotypes, potentially encouraging harmful gambling behaviours’. 

The first advertisement depicted a woman holding a baby, with text that read: ‘it’s hard to pay my rent and take care of my babies’.  The woman was depicted later in the video with her thumb up and there was text that stated: ‘But I made $8,500 last month.’

Meanwhile, the second advertisement showed a man using his phone while sitting on the toilet. The advertisement included the following wording: ‘Only 3% of people can do this. Make money while sitting on the toilet.’

‘Human error’ missed the memo

In response to the IASA ruling, TonyBet ‘urgently discontinued non-compliant advertisements with immediate effect’ as it reaffirmed its commitment to complying with industry standards and regulatory requirements. 

Detailing its process for creating new advertising campaigns, TonyBet shared that internal advertising guidance is shared among the team and outlines the provisions from the ASAI code – with any adverts also subject to a second round of approvals via the company’s Jira account. 

However, in this instance, the adverts in question were said to be handled by a mobile affiliation partner. Citing ‘human error’, a new employee from the mobile affiliation partner had not completed thorough checks of the advertising templates prior to distribution. 

The ruling read: “They said that the partner did not warn them that the advertising material would be launched for YouTube and due to high workload, the Tonybet Marketing team missed the material in question and campaign managers launched the material automatically, assuming it has passed the multiple checks.”

To mitigate such events ever recurring, TonyBet has created additional training sessions for any relevant stakeholders and will also be placing its ongoing relationship with the affiliate partner under review. 

The ruling concluded: “They underlined that they were fully committed to the compliance with respective rules and regulations in the territory of Ireland and the current advertisement launch was not a deliberate action of the company but a mistake of a third-party employee.”