Ladbrokes commercials have been shown on a smartphone app that parents can use as a baby monitor in the UK.
One of the country’s most prominent sports betting companies, the Ladbrokes commercials shown were said to entice prospective customers with a “welcome bonus” of £30 (around $37), asking people to “take time to think.”
The gambling commercials appeared on the Chinese-developed application YCC365 Plus, a monitoring program developed by Cloudcam that is available on the Android store.
Campaigners in the UK have called for urgent action on the governing body of gambling advertising, which has been said to be “left out” of overhaul plans by the current Labour government.
Entain PLC, which owns Ladbrokes, said that the commercials did not breach its guidelines because YCC365 Plus (the monitoring app) was not aimed at minors. However, the application has been said to be advertised on home retail websites that sell baby monitors for home use, calling the defense used here into question.
Concerned parents have raised concerns about having gambling commercials placed on the baby monitor app. Most prominently, Tom Fleming works in communications as a public affairs adviser for the charity Gambling With Lives, which is seeking reform for the industry.
Fleming told The Guardian: “Watching my baby on camera with a gambling ad visible just feels wrong. It’s something that’s there to keep my child safe but it’s also feeding through a stream of offers for harmful free bets and the like.” He continued: “There’s just no escape from these ads when they’re appearing somewhere as innocuous as this.”
Campaigners want to reform how gambling commercials are handled in the UK and where they should appear. Will Prochaska, leader of the Coalition to End Gambling Ads (CEGA), said: “Targeting exhausted parents is yet another predatory tactic of the gambling industry, which makes most of its money from people it harms.”
He added: “Urgent action is needed to stop the population being bombarded with gambling ads at every turn. If the ads aren’t stopped the damage to families and communities will only increase.”
This news comes shortly after the emerging story of the wife of a gambler in the UK trying to get gambling ads banned after her husband raked up debts exceeding £85,000 ($104,621).
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