ASAI issues new guidelines on advertising of gambling products

Following the introduction of Ireland’s new gambling betting tax framework (implemented 1 August). The Advertising Standards Authority for Ireland (ASAI), has announced a set of new marketing guidelines for gambling advertisers.

Targeting brand communications and promotional messaging, the ASAI has stated that betting and gambling advertisers cannot portray gambling as “providing an escape from personal, professional or adult problems such as loneliness or depression”.

Gambling products and services should also not be portrayed as a solution to financial problems or a substitution for earning an income, and nor can advertisements imply that gambling is a “rite of passage”.

The new guidelines were introduced by Ireland Minister for Communications Alex White, and will be attached to the country’s seventh ASAI standards code for advertising and marketing.

Ireland’s Tax & Custom Office has so far granted 27 operator licenses to national and international operators, who will be allowed to advertising their services on multiple media channels.

Following developments to the online betting market and its regulatory framework, the authority issued a short statement regarding its gambling guidelines;

“They are areas of societal concern, and we felt it would be timely to introduce specific rules for them,”