The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has ordered five social casino brands to pull adverts from TikTok due to advertising the possibility of winning “real-money and tangible prizes”.
Dataverse Co., Huuuge Global, Mobee Co., SpinX Games and Zeroo Gravity Games were all told to remove paid-for TikTok ads by the advertising regulator as they deemed the ads to be misleading.
Although each of the organisations was dealt with using separate rulings, the ASA referred to the same theme surrounding real-world prizes in each of its rulings.
For example, an advert for Huuuge Global’s ‘Billionaire Casino’ app featured a person in the front seat of a Tesla who claimed that he bought the car because he “stopped going to the casino and started playing Billionaire Casino instead”.
Social casinos offer slot machines and other casino-based games, however, customers are unable to win or withdraw any real-world money or tangible prizes from the apps.
Huuuge Global claimed that they believed it was clear that its social casino app was not a gambling product in which consumers could win real money or real prizes, however, the ASA considered that “consumers would interpret [the ad] to mean the individual had won a significant amount of money by playing Billionaire Casino and had been able to purchase the new car with the winnings they had accrued”.
On the five rulings, the ASA stated: “We understood that social casino apps emulate slot machines or other casino-based games, but that people couldn’t win or withdraw any real-world money. But all of these ads failed to make clear that this was the case, giving people a misleading impression.
“These rulings form part of a wider piece of work on paid-for gambling-like ads, identified for investigation following intelligence we’ve gathered. The rules are clear, these ads shouldn’t mislead consumers by creating the impression that they can win real-world prizes if this isn’t the case.”
All five companies were found to be in breach of CAP Code rules 3.1 and 3.3, which pertain to misleading advertising.
