France’s unified gambling regulator L’Autorité Nationale des Jeux (ANJ) has issued a warning to the country’s licensed operators for ‘crossing the line on betting advertising volumes’ during this summer’s UEFA Euro 2020 championship.
The warning comes after a review by ANJ of advertising campaigns of the recent football tournament, in which it had previously warned advertisers to uphold their marketing duties earlier this year.
The regulator stated that it was forced to ‘draw a yellow card on marketing communications that target young adults and fuel the easy illusion of winning money as particularly problematic’.
Following a survey conducted by Harris Interactive, the ANJ raised concerns about the volume of sports betting advertising in France and the impact that it could have on younger people, potentially causing gambling problems.
As a result, the regulator instructed all licensed operators to submit ‘a mid-term activity’ report outlining their advertising campaigns approved for the remainder of the year.
Key areas that will be examined include an assessment of operator terms and conditions, the use of bonuses to attract customers and loyalty incentives.
There will also be further discussions and reviews of the advertising campaigns used by operators to attract consumers, particularly in younger demographics.
The agency highlighted its concerns of ‘tipster referrals’ and tipster websites, noting the ‘deceptive commercial practices of certain tipster or tipster sites which have recently grown strongly’.
ANJ President Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin commented: “The Euros had an extremely useful effect because it highlighted and questioned problematic practices for sports betting that the ANJ had identified during this first year of existence.It is not possible to make young people believe that one can easily win money by betting.”