ASA Says Play’n Go Ads Were Likely to Catch Children’s Attention

Play’n Go has landed in hot water after the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruled that several of its online ads could easily appeal to children. Three separate complaints were upheld, each involving animated imagery placed beside email inboxes, where the ASA says children were likely to see them.

Good to know

• ASA found three Play’n Go ads had child-appealing content next to kids’ email inboxes
• Ads included anime princesses, a cartoon bunny, and a robot DJ
• ASA said Play’n Go’s targeting failed to keep ads away from under-18s

One of the flagged ads showed a superhero-style Easter bunny holding a silver egg and a basket of colorful eggs. This Easter-themed promotion for a slot game popped up beside two children’s inboxes. Another ad promoting the Spinnin’ Records Into the Beat slot game featured a robot DJ with a purple screen for a face and pixel-style features.

The third complaint focused on an ad for the Moon Princess slot series, which showed three anime-style princesses and also appeared next to a child’s inbox. Each ad had Play’n Go’s logo clearly visible.

Company response and ad targeting

Play’n Go responded by saying it believed the characters in question were designed for adult appeal. Still, the company admitted it understood how the visuals could draw the attention of younger users.

The ads were delivered through Adroll, a programmatic ad platform. According to Play’n Go, they made sure to tag the ads as gambling content during the bidding stage to ensure they would only appear on websites that had explicitly allowed gambling-related material.

ASA rules targeting was not strong enough

The ASA did not accept that explanation. It argued that relying on self-reported age data and behavioral targeting was not enough to prevent children from seeing gambling content. The ASA said:

“We considered that the targeting measures used by Adroll, which relied on self-declaration of age of users entering the Play’n Go website and retargeting based on that data, as well as prospecting targeting using browsing behaviours, were not sufficiently robust to ensure under-18s were entirely excluded from the audience.” 

While the Play’n Go website does not allow direct gambling, the ASA still considered the ads to breach the UK’s advertising code. The regulator has ordered Play’n Go to stop using the current versions of those ads altogether.

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