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 featuring Gary Neville has been prohibited for breaking guidelines on betting adverts.


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


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


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


The ASA's code states betting adverts must not interest children or young people, "specifically by showing or being connected with youth culture".


They say their guidelines are based upon the truth that is not for under-18s, so adverts on the subject can't be directed at that age group in any way.


'Flawed procedure'


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 likewise 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 6 at the time, the business had actually argued.


But the ASA, which enforces UK marketing guidelines, said it had actually determined Neville had 135,000 under-18 followers across Instagram and X, formerly called Twitter.


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


But the authority believed the total number was "substantial" enough to conclude the advertisement was reckless.


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


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


It stated it had informed Sky Bet not to include anybody with a strong interest under-18s in their future advertising.


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


X informed the regulator the ad did not breach any of its current policies and it had not received any grievances.


A spokesman for Sky Bet's parent business Flutter said: "We basically disagree with this choice and the problematic procedure which caused this result - it defies both precedent and sound judgment.


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


It said it would likewise seek "an independent review" of the case.


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