‘Misleading’ Lucky Go Studio ad banned by ASA

Lucky Go Studio has fallen foul of the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) after one complainant questioned whether an in-game ad was misleading due to exaggeration of the chances of winning prizes when using the app.

The advert, first seen as an in-app video ad for the app Lucky Goal, was first shown on 25 November 2019. It showed the mobile phone screen of someone trying to order a pair of headphones on Amazon but who received a message which stated “Your credit card has been declined”.

The advert then featured on-screen text which said “Lucky Goal – Funny every day” and “New chances to Win Every Day!” before going on to show the user opening the Lucky Goal app, playing a game of roulette and winning $85.

A quiz was then shown where two questions answered correctly resulted in the user winning $100. The user then won $54 on a scratch card. The ad ended with text which stated “LUCKY GOAL” and “PLAY. WIN. REDEEM” on-screen, underneath which were logos for Amazon and PayPal.

Lucky Go Studio failed to respond to the ASA’s ruling, which resulted in the advertising watchdog arguing that this represented an “apparent disregard” for the CAP code.

Ruling that the advert in question must not appear again in its current form, the ASA explained: “We reminded them of their responsibility to respond promptly to our enquiries and told them to do so in future.

“We considered consumers would understand from the ad that users of the Lucky Goal app stood a reasonable chance of winning the sums of money featured in the ad and that they would be able to redeem any money they won. However, we received no information from the advertiser demonstrating that users had won and redeemed the sums featured.

“In the absence of such evidence, we concluded that the claim had not been substantiated and was therefore misleading.”