Coral in Deep Water with ASA
Published on by Andrew Mills
Coral Interactive (Gibraltar) Ltd has felt the wrath of the ASA as a result of social media posts.As social media has become more of a tool for promotion for companies, there have been a lot more cases of people complaining about posts by companies, and that is exactly what happened with Coral.
What did they do?
The ASA received a two-part complaint with regards to a tweet that Coral had posted in April of this year.The tweet in question said:“The easiest £40 you’ll make this week! Stake £5 on 5/4 Real Madrid to beat Man City and get paid out at 8/1.”Alongside the tweet was an image of a lady holding a sign that contained the text:“New Customer Offer MAN CITY V REAL MADRID REAL MADRID TO WIN 8/1”A flag in the image explained that winnings would be paid in free bets.
The complaint
The complainant said that, firstly, the language of the tweet implied that the bet would be risk free, which was misleading.The second part of the complaint was that the tweet did not state that winnings would be paid in free bets clearly enough.
The response and ruling
In response to the first part of the complaint, Coral stated that the claim was based on Real Madrid being favourite for the match, and therefore was easy money.The ASA agreed on this point, saying that people would’ve understood that there was a certain level of risk in the bet, which was dependent on Real Madrid winning, so this section of the complaint was not upheld.However, for the second point, the ASA ruled that the tweet breached CAP Codes 3.1, 3.9 and 3.10, because the information about winnings being paid in free bets was substantially smaller than the main body of text.