ASA The Jumpman Gaming site – Lights Camera Bingo has had a complaint against it upheld by the Advertising Standards Agency.
The complaint was made to the ASA that Lights Camera Bingo was encouraging harmful gambling on its bingo website.
When consumers left the website to open another tab, a camera symbol and the words “Hey! Come Back!” appeared in the open tab.
Lights Camera Bingo defended itself by claiming that the only purpose behind the message was to alert a customer that the website had not been closed.
The ASA acknowledged Lights Camera Bingo's defense that the message was intended to alert customers that they had not closed the tab or logged out of their accounts. However, the Advertising Standards Agency ruled that the message was deemed to be a marketing communication that fell within the remit of the CAP Code, as the message was directly connected with the supply of Lights Camera Bingo’s bingo playing service.
Encouraging Harm
A statement on the ASA website said that:
“While we accepted that some consumers may visit more than one website at a time and therefore have several tabs open, we considered that they may also have opened another tab because they had decided to leave the Lights Camera Bingo website,”
“The message “Hey! Come Back!” continued to flash for the duration that the tab remained opened and disappeared only when someone clicked to close the tab or went back onto the web page. We considered in that format, consumers’ attention would be drawn to seeing the message.”
The ASA said that the ad could exploit or harm vulnerable gamblers and was found to have encouraged consumers to engage in gambling behaviour that could lead to financial, social, or emotional harm, exploited the susceptibilities of vulnerable people, and was, therefore irresponsible and breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 16.1, 16.3, 16.3.1 and 16.3.2 (Gambling).
Ben has been an massive bingo enthusiast and fan since playing at the seaside as a kid. Dedicated to bringing you the latest and best bingo news from the UK
