ASA Ban Vernons Bingo TV Advert for being Misleading

The ASA (Advertising Standards Agency) have banned a TV Advert brought to us by Sportech Alderney Ltd, trading as Vernons Bingo.

The complaint made to the ASA by a viewer regarding their advert was upheld on both counts.

The complainant had the following issues with their bingo ad –

1. The £10 deposited had to be spent before a user could receive the £30 free bonus; and
2. Any winnings could only be claimed after the £30 bonus had been wagered four times

As always, the ASA fully investigates all complaints and they concluded that on both points 1 and 2, the Vernons Bingo TV advert breached BCAP rules 3.1 and 3.2 (Misleading advertising), 3.10 (Qualification), and 3.25 (“Free” claims”).

This bingo ad from Vernons Bingo must not know be broadcast on TV again in its current form. It can only take one complaint by a viewer to get see an advert banned and that is exactly what has happened in the case of Vernons.

Let’s look at the advert in question – During the advert, it displayed on-screen text at the bottom of the screen that stated “vernonsbingo.com/tv £30 FREE!”. One of the characters said, “Plus if you join now they’ll give you £30 free to get you going” while on-screen text stated “Freeplay, T&Cs apply”. A voice-over at the end of the ad said, “Now at Vernons Bingo deposit £10 and get £30 absolutely free” and was accompanied with on-screen text which stated “Bonus cash out conditions apply”. In the final scene, on-screen text stated “£30 Free Bonus”.

Clearcast tried to put their case to the ASA on why the ad should not be banned. They said, “if a consumer deposited £10, Vernons Bingo would give them £30 free to play. They felt that viewers would interpret that to mean that if they deposited £10 “to play”, then they would receive a bonus of £30 to play for free and that was qualified with “freeplay” in the legal super.”

Clearcast also said, “they had advised the advertiser that they would need to include “bonus cash out conditions apply” in the legal super to make clear that there were conditions to withdrawing winnings. As the ad did not mention any prize or jackpot amount, they felt there was no need for the advertiser to explicitly spell out how much a user would have to wager, in order to claim any winnings.”

However, the ASA rejected this stating – “consumers might not necessarily understand that they would have to both deposit and wager £10, before they were allocated their free bonus, and instead might simply believe that, as part of the introductory offer, they could deposit £10 and then immediately access and wager their bonus funds too. We therefore considered that the ad was misleading and in breach of the Code.”

If you see a TV Bingo advert offering a bonus of £30 free on a deposit of £10, you would automatically think you would receive the free £30 bonus as soon as you made your deposit (unless is specifically stated otherwise) wouldn’t you? This is how most online bingo site operate with their welcome offers – but not it appears at Vernons Bingo. You would first need to deposit £10 and wager through that amount purchasing bingo tickets, before being eligible to receive the £30 free bonus.

In their defence, Vernons do make this offer very clear in the terms and conditions on their site. They really should have done the same with their TV ad.

Advertising on television does not come cheap, plus it is not good business to have your advert banned for being misleading to the public – Which is not great news for Vernons.