SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
The Betting and Gaming Council (BGC) has extended its members’ safer gambling requirements for broadcast advertising to the digital sphere in the latest update to the operators’ industry code.
In its seventh incarnation, the Industry Code for Socially Responsible Advertising (IGRG code) focuses on limiting the exposure of under-25s and under-18s to betting and gaming marketing content.
The current commitment for 20% of TV and radio advertising to be devoted to safer gambling messaging will be extended to the digital sphere, where engagement with members of this demographic is strongest.
Michael Dugher, BGC CEO, said: “As the standards body for the regulated sector, we are committed to continuing to drive up standards and make big changes across the betting and gaming industry. Helping protect young people is our number one priority.
“BGC Members have already taken significant steps to ensure adverts by our members only reach the right audiences. With more help from the platforms, we can do even more.”
Also expanded is the scope of the ‘25+ rule’ for paid social media adverts, which will now be applied to all digital media platforms which utilise ‘an appropriate age filter’. The rule initially prevented sponsorship and paid social media advertising unless websites can provide precise targeting of over-18s.
The need for ‘more help from platforms’, as stated by Dugher, is a repeat of a long-held BGC view that greater cooperation is needed from social media providers to limit under-18s exposure to gambling content.
Earlier this summer the trade standards association wrote to DCMS requesting that the government joins its calls. The BGC argued that a ‘marketing suppression scheme’ to stop the 300,000 registrants of the GAMSTOP self-exclusion platform from receiving direct advertising would be an ideal new measure.
With a heavier political and public spotlight cast over the UK gambling sector in recent years, especially in the context of the Gambling Act review, the BGC has increasingly prioritised safer gambling messaging and policies.
This saw the adoption of a ‘whistle-to-whistle ban’ on TV gambling adverts in 2019 by some of the association’s biggest members which are part of the Industry Group for Responsible Gambling (IGRG), from which the IGRG code’s name is derived.
In the years since the BGC has adopted other measures, such as a code of conduct banning football clubs using social media apps to directly show betting odds and sites, as well as the aforementioned focus on safer gambling in operator marketing.
Dugher continued: “Safer gambling messaging is also absolutely crucial. It is about ensuring that customers use safer gambling tools like setting deposits limits and time outs, but also it is about the vitally important work of signposting the help that is out there to help the minority of gamblers who might be struggling with their betting and gaming.
”The new edition of the IGRG Code is further evidence of our determination to continue to ensure that standards are rising and are as high as they can possibly be”.
