The UK has very tight standards when it comes to the very liberalized online casino gambling industry in the country. Although the UK’s liberal standards and regulations mean that the internet gambling sites are able to make use of advertising dispensations and other extensive and marketing opportunities there are protocols in place and the companies have to live up to the advertising restrictions that the Advertising Standards Authority in the UK enforces. Betfair entered the spotlight this month because the online casino gambling company launched an advertising campaign featuring Annette Obrestad and the number 15, alleging implying that Obrestad could be as young as 15 in the advertisements.

The ASA is very strict about age targeting within advertisements – this is actually a key concern. Underage gambling is a growing problem in the global online casino gambling industry and the ASA banned the latest Betfair advertisement because it could seemingly be interpreted to be targeted at the 15 year olds. Basically, the advertisement used the handle “Annette_15” for Obrestad and then a tagline that specifically talks about age. There could arguably be a case about the validity of the advertisement if the Betfair ad team hadn’t chosen the tagline “Online experience is measured in games, not years.”

The tagline is extremely fitting for Obrestad, who is a very young and highly notable female land and online casino poker gambler. She won the World Series of Poker and is a great brand spokesperson – except for the fact that although she is definitely old enough to gamble, she looks much younger. The ASA received complaints about the advertisement and has since a banned the advertisement. Betfair acknowledged the validity of the ban and noted that the UK advertising campaign was not supposed to feature Obrestad.