UK challenger brand Midnite has been sanctioned by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) for a post featuring the former Tottenham Hotspur star Son Heung-min.
The ASA upheld complaints made against Dribble Media Ltd, which trades as Midnite, for a post on X that featured a video of Son holding the Europa League trophy and was captioned “How bro starts acting after winning £8.10 from a 30p 8 fold acca bet”.
The body deemed that Son’s presence meant that it was likely to be of strong appeal to under-18s, breaching the CAP code that all UK Gambling Commission licensees must follow.
This incident is not the first time that Midnite has landed itself in hot water with the ASA.
In September, Midnite was ordered to remove another post from X featuring an AI video of the Real Madrid right back Trent Alexander-Arnold for the same reasons.
In both cases, Midnite argued that the posts were editorial in nature and not designed to drive traffic to their platforms or encourage engagement with any gambling-related product or services.
However, the ASA ruled this was not the case, and the posts constituted advertising.
Its latest ruling stated: “The post was published following Tottenham’s 1-0 win over Manchester in the final of the Europa League, which was a high-profile game that attracted significant media attention.
“We understood that Midnite offered bets on football matches. The post also included a direct reference to an accumulator, which was a type of betting slip. It also included a reference to winning money on a bet.
“We considered the purpose of the post was to promote the brand through creating a viral video, and that it had featured a direct reference to gambling. It was therefore directly connected with the supply of betting services and was an ad falling within the scope of the CAP Code.”
As with previous rulings on social media posts, the ASA also questioned the effectiveness of X’s age control mechanisms.
Despite noting that X has mechanisms in place to prevent under-18s viewing content from gambling companies, it relies on users self-verifying their age upon sign-up.
The advertising body cited research from Ofcom that found 32% of eight to 17-year-olds with at least one social media account had a registered user age of 18 or above.
Therefore, the ASA considered it likely that a significant number of children who had not used their real date of birth when signing up to X could see and be promoted to content from verified gambling accounts.
As a result of these considerations, the ASA has ordered informed Midnite that the ad must not appear again in the form complained of.
It has also told Midnite not to include persons or characters who have a strong appeal to those under 18 in future communications.