The Gambling Commission has doubled down on its commitment to responsible gambling advertising.
The Gambling Commission has partnered with Facebook to create guidance intended to limit the number of gambling-related adverts that users see online.
This comes after members of the Betting and Gaming Council committed to implementing limits on slot spin speeds and bans on some features.
Gambling Commission partners with Facebook for new guidance
The new guidance will aim to reduce the risk associated with gambling-related advertisements and messaging across social media. It will also provide users with information on how they can use Facebook’s safety tools and settings to control adverts that appear on their newsfeeds.
The guidance offered via the partnership will include information on the hide ads feature, ad preferences tool and managing data.
Users can use the hide ads feature to control which ads they see on their newsfeed by utilising the “Why am I seeing this ad?” feature to hide all ads from a specific advertiser. The ad preferences tool will enable users to review advertisers they have recently seen ads from and chose to see fewer ads about a number of predetermined topics.
Guidance on managing data will inform users that they can also control how their data is used to show ads on and off Facebook, including whether they can be targeted based on certain attributes listed in their profile.
Gambling Commission Chief Executive, Neil McArthur, said: “Protecting children and vulnerable people from being harmed or exploited by gambling is at the heart of what we do, which is why I challenged the industry to look at how they can make better use of technology to prevent gambling-related content and adverts being seen by those individuals.
“Partnering with Facebook to produce this guidance is a welcome step for us in order to offer consumers clear, practical advice, and I hope that this will help them limit the gambling-related content they see when using the platform.”
Rick Kelley, VP of Global Gaming at Facebook, said: “Facebook is committed to supporting a safe and transparent environment for people to control their experiences on our platform. We’re delighted that our partnership with the Gambling Commission will help operators to implement advertising campaigns responsibly, while helping to protect the people who use our services.”
Industry commitment to safeguarding younger audiences online
Earlier this year, the gambling industry’s leadership revealed its new “action plan on safer gambling” which will implement new safeguarding measures to protect younger audiences from viewing gambling-related content and messaging across social media.
The UK’s industry trade body, the Betting and Gaming Council introduced the new safeguards which will form the “Sixth Industry Code for Socially Responsible Advertising” which members will adopt from 1 October.
Under the new code, which will be adopted as standard practice, Betting and Gaming Council members must ensure that all audiences are age-gated through social media ID verification measures before they can view gambling-related advertising.
