SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has published its latest report on the rate of gambling TV ads that reach children, showing a significant decrease in exposure.
Monitoring of ads has been recently moved to a frequency of reporting once every two years. This was done as part of ASA’s efforts to test the effectiveness of its restrictions and detect any compliance shortcomings.
A key finding from the report was that under-16s exposure to gambling ads on TV has decreased by two-fifths since 2010 – the first year of monitoring.
In numbers, this means that children’s exposure to TV gambling ads was reduced from an average of 3.0 ads per week in 2010 to 1.8 ads per week in 2023. Children also saw just under one TV ad for gambling on average for every six seen by adults in 2023.
According to the ASA, England had the lowest exposure levels across the four nations in 2023. The exposure ranged from 1.7 ads per week in Northern Ireland to 2.3 ads per week in Scotland.
“While the continued decline in children’s exposure to age-restricted TV ads is encouraging, we know that a lot of that is down to changing media habits, which is why we are also continuing to conduct specific project work looking at what ads they are seeing online,” the watchdog added.
“Projects like Exposure Reports, our proactive monitoring sweeps using world-leading Avatar technology, and the cutting-edge 100 Children Report, help us ensure that our regulation is thorough and effective in providing appropriate protections for children.”
