Lewis Hamilton ruled well off limits for betting marketing

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has ruled against Lewis Hamilton’s inclusion in betting social media campaigns for the second time this quarter.

Betway has been told to remove a Facebook post from 4 July 2025 which centred around Formula One. The post featured a video of three F1 drives, filmed from behind, along with the Betway logo.

The driver standing in the middle of the trio wore a red uniform with ‘Hamilton’ sketched across the back, while the other two did not have any names. A heading read ‘Who’s the best of the Brits?’.

A complainant queried whether the ad violated the CAP Code by featuring someone who may be of strong appeal to under-18s. The ASA has upheld this complaint, reiterating its view that Hamilton has a strong appeal to young people and comes across as a role model.

The ASA’s statement explained: “The ad featured Sir Lewis Hamilton, who had won a joint-record seven Formula One World Drivers’ Championship titles and was recognised with a knighthood in 2021 for his outstanding achievements and contribution to motorsport.

“In his “Hall of Fame” bio on the Formula 1 website, Sir Lewis Hamilton was described as recognising his responsibility as a role model for young people, which further described that “the social media star encouraged his millions of supporters in ‘Team Hamilton’ to follow their dreams and never give up”.

The ASA did say that it may have allowed the use of an athlete with strong appeal to under-18s in a medium where visibility by that demographic could be excluded, but did not consider Facebook to be such a medium.

To support its rationale, the ASA referenced Hamilton’s 6.3 million Facebook followers – though noting that the demographic of these has not been determined – as well as his 1.6 million under-18 followers across Instagram and TikTok.

Hit brakes on Lewis Hamilton ads

To avoid bad press, it’s probably best for the betting industry to avoid using Hamilton, and probably other F1 drivers, on social media posts and other marketing. As noted above, this is not the first time the seven-time drivers champion has appeared in an ASA ruling.

Just under two months ago, a plethora of ASA rulings came out in just one day, one of which focused on Hamilton’s inclusion in a kwiff social media post. Similar to the Betway post, the kwiff one came ahead of the British Grand Prix at Silverstone this year, which Hamilton won.

Marketing is becoming an increasingly complex task for operators, with the CAP Code guidance presenting multiple factors for operators to consider. On the same day as the kwiff ruling, Betway was told to remove a post featuring Chelsea FC scarves and Sky Bet to remove a post featuring Gary Neville, despite football pundits and retired players previously being approved in other ASA rulings.

As the dust settles on last week’s UK budget, however, marketing expenditure is likely going to decrease too. Operators need to cut costs as they prepare for tax hikes to take effect from April next year, and marketing is a logical first step.

As marketing expenditure drops, perhaps recurrent complaints – the ASA has issued countless rulings this week while University of Bristol researchers seem to be a constant source of complaints – will also drop.