ASA warns Coral over use of promoted tweets

Coral has been censured by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) over a promoted tweet from its Twitter account. The company has been warned not to show the advert again in its current form, and to ensure that future campaigns are clear as to how any winnings will be paid out.

The tweet in question was posted on April 26, 2016, and stated: ‘The easiest £40 you’ll make this week! Stake £5 on 5/4 Real Madrid to beat Man City and get paid out at 8/1’. The ASA agreed with a member of the public, who complained that the promotion did not make it sufficiently clear that winnings would be paid in free bets.

Coral argued that the tweet did include a large yellow flag headlined ‘New Customer Offer’, which clearly stated the condition that winnings would be paid in free bets. However, the ASA upheld the ruling that this was misleading, because the text was small in relation to the main body of the tweet, and not sufficiently prominent to counter the impression that winnings would be paid out in cash.

It is important to note that the other complaint made about the tweet was not upheld. The ASA decided that it did not misleadingly imply that the bet was risk-free, and that it was clear enough that Real Madrid would need to win the match. They thought that players were unlikely to believe that a victory was guaranteed and that any bet placed on Real Madrid was without risk.