Sky Bet Tweet Featuring Gary Neville Banned Over Gambling Ad Rules

18 October 2023
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Tom RichardsonBBC Newsbeat


A Sky Bet tweet including Gary Neville has actually been banned for breaking guidelines on betting adverts.


The post utilized an ingrained clip of the ex-footballer anticipating Premier League winners on YouTube series The Overlap.


Sky Bet's logo appeared throughout the video, which ended with text mentioning: "Brought to you by Sky Bet".


The UK's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruled Neville was "most likely to be of strong attract under-18s" - which Sky Bet rejected.


The ASA's code says gambling adverts must not interest kids or young individuals, "especially by showing or being associated with youth culture".


They state their guidelines are based on the fact that gaming is not for under-18s, so adverts on the topic can't be directed at that age group in any way.


'Flawed process'


Sky Bet said The Overlap, sponsored by the company and produced by Neville, was "noticeably adult in tone and did not feature any material of a childish nature".


It also mentioned that the footballer, a star of Manchester United's "Class of '92", ended his professional profession in 2011.


An 18-year-old today would have been five or six at the time, the company had argued.


But the ASA, which implements UK marketing rules, said it had actually computed Neville had 135,000 under-18 followers throughout Instagram and X, previously called Twitter.


It acknowledged this was a "little proportion" of his combined following on both, which was 7.1 m when it launched its examination in March 2023.


But the authority thought the overall number was "considerable" enough to conclude the advertisement was careless.


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The advertisement featuring Neville was a promoted tweet so the ASA said SkyBet had been informed not to publish it again.


Its ruling also bans them from featuring him once again in any media that isn't strictly set up to leave out under-18s.


It said it had actually informed Sky Bet not to consist of anybody with a strong appeal to under-18s in their future marketing.


The ASA said age figures for Neville's TikTok and Facebook followings were not readily available.


X told the regulator the ad did not breach any of its current policies and it had actually not gotten any problems.


A representative for Sky Bet's moms and dad company stated: "We basically disagree with this decision and the flawed procedure which led to this result - it defies both precedent and sound judgment.


"The ASA did not get a single grievance from the general public or wider stakeholders about the social networks post in concern."


It said it would also seek "an independent evaluation" of the case.


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