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The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), a United Kingdom media watch dog, has decided that online promotion of a Monopoly-themed online casino game breached a rule of gambling adverts not to be designed to appeal to an underage audience.
The advert, which was appearing on the Mirror Online website, had used the board game’s familiar cartoon mascot, Rich Uncle Pennybags, also known as Mr Monopoly.
“We considered that Monopoly was a family game generally played by or with children and that under-18s would therefore recognise and find the ad’s references to it appealing,” explained the ASA in its ruling. The regulator reportedly has also told Entertaining Play, the Gibraltar-based company behind the game, that it must not appear again.
Entertaining Play argued that the famed game mascot is very unlikely to appeal to young audiences since he is pictured as an elderly man and “it did not possess exaggerated features and did not mimic any cartoon character in current children’s programming.”
The ban comes amid concern about children’s exposure to gambling, especially through TV adverts and football shirt sponsorship. It has been recently reported that number of underage gamblers aged 11-16 increased to 55,000 nationwide.
