The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has upheld complaints lobbied against three operators over social media ads deemed to be appealing to under-18s.
The operators involved were Sky Bet, kwiff and Betway, with the ads in question published between February 2023 and May 2025.
In Sky Bet’s case, a post on X seen on 9 February 2023 featured a clip from The Overlap football podcast.
The video showed Sky Sports pundit and former Manchester United player Gary Neville discussing which team might win the Premier League, with the Sky Bet logo appearing intermittently throughout the video.
Kwiff’s X post from July 2024 contained an image of Formula 1 icon Lewis Hamilton, accompanying a banner across the bottom that featured an 18+ symbol and the BeGambleAware.org logo.
The post also contained a link to an article on kwiff’s website about the British Grand Prix.
With regard to Betway, a pre-roll ad on YouTube from May 2025 showed football fans wearing clothing containing the logo of Premier League side Chelsea.
The Sky Bet case
The update from ASA, released today, 22 October, links to a previous ruling issued in October 2023. The watchdog said the upheld ruling had remained, with the notice having some “minor factual amendments”.
The ad featuring Neville was challenged by ASA itself, meaning no member of the public or social media platform X had flagged the post as potentially appealing to under-18s.
Sky Bet argued that while Neville was well known for his playing career with Manchester United, he retired from football in 2011 when today’s 18-year-olds would have six years old, at most.
The Flutter-owned operator insisted this met the CAP Guidance’s definition of “long retired” and therefore Neville was at low risk of strongly appealing to under-18s.
Sky Bet also cited previous ASA rulings where more recently retired footballers who had moved into punditry had been judged not to be of strong appeal to under-18s.
However, ASA put forward that Neville’s prominent social media following would mean he has a “moderate risk” of appealing to under-18s, despite his lengthily retired status.
An ASA statement said: “The B/CAP Guidance classed retired footballers who had moved into punditry as likely to be of ‘moderate risk’ of strong appeal to under-18s and stated that they would be assessed on the basis of their social and other media profile.
“However, the guidance also stated that anyone with a significant under-18 following on social media could be of ‘high risk’. We therefore assessed the appeal that Mr Neville was likely to have to under-18s on the basis of his social and other media profiles.
“Of his 1.6 million Instagram followers, 5% were registered as under 18, which amounted to 80,000 users. Of his 5.5 million Twitter/X followers, 1% were registered as under 18, which amounted to over 55,000 followers. Therefore across his active social media accounts approximately 135,000 social media follower accounts associated with Gary Neville were registered to people under-18.”
In response to ASA’s confirmation of its decision, Flutter claimed it “defies precedent and common sense”.
A Flutter spokesperson told EGR: “We are now in a situation where a regulated operator is reprimanded over a tweet promoting a football show to over 25s while illegal black market operators flood the internet and social media without any checks.
“Not one person complained about this tweet, either to us or the ASA. Instead, the ASA lodged a complaint with itself and upheld its own complaint. We can only imagine the intense pressure the ASA is being put under by anti-gambling campaigners, but this ruling defies both precedent and common sense.”
Betway and branding
In Betway’s case, a complainant argued that the Chelsea logo featured too prominently throughout the pre-roll ad, with the club’s badge visible on clothing and scarves worn by fans.
Betway claimed it had the contractual right to use the club’s logo in their capacity as Chelsea’s official European betting partner, and that it tried to minimise the ad’s connection with football by omitting any shots of actual football being played.
The operator added that “if the ad were found to be in breach of the [CAP] Code it could set a damaging precedent for gambling sponsorships in sport”.
ASA said: “We considered that it would have been acceptable for the [Chelsea] logo to appear in a standalone context, for example at the end of the ad, where it would act as a visual reference to a subject of the gambling activity.
“However, the logo was shown on fans’ scarves, lanyards and hats. It also featured on team shirts in wall displays and on backdrops within the stadium building.
“We considered that the depiction of the team logo in an ad that showed a stadium experience for fans was likely to strongly appeal to children and young people who supported Chelsea FC or followed football more widely.
“We further considered that its appearance in that context went beyond any permitted exemption for identifying content and therefore was likely to be of strong appeal to under-18s.”
EGR has contacted Betway for comment.
Kwiff’s hit
Kwiff argued that its post featuring Hamilton was an “editorial commentary on a sporting event”, which had no inducement or call-to-action to prompt people to gamble.
The post also linked directly to a sports news blog and not to a web page where consumers could gamble.
The ad was flagged to ASA by a researcher from the University of Bristol.
For kwiff’s ad, ASA stated that its purpose was to promote the operator’s brand and therefore turn people’s attention towards gambling.
The ruling noted: “We considered the purpose of the post was to promote the kwiff brand and their gambling services by highlighting a prominent and imminent sports event and referring to the participants, on whose performance consumers could bet, using kwiff’s services.
“The ad linked through to an article which provided odds on the race, including for Sir Lewis Hamilton to win, which linked in turn to the kwiff gambling site where bets could be placed.
“We considered the post was therefore directly connected with the supply of betting services and was an ad falling within the scope of the CAP Code.”
ASA ruled that all three ads must not appear again in their current form, with each operator warned not to include people or characters who may appeal to under-18s in any future ads.
Kwiff declined to comment further on the ruling when approached by EGR.
The post ASA upholds complaints against three operators for ads targeting under-18s first appeared on EGR Intel.
Advertising watchdog orders that social media ads posted by Sky Bet, kwiff and Betway must not appear again in their current form
The post ASA upholds complaints against three operators for ads targeting under-18s first appeared on EGR Intel.