17 October 2023 , 23:01
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A Sky Bet tweet featuring Gary Neville has been banned after a watchdog found his appeal among under-18s broke gambling ad rules.
The promoted message on February 9 contained a video clip from The Overlap podcast, which showed the ex-Man Utd and England star discussing who might win the Premier League. The betting firm’s logo appeared intermittently throughout the video and text at the end stated: “Brought to you by Sky Bet.”
The Advertising Standards Authority investigated and found the ad breached their code as it included an individual popular among minors. Sky Bet said they “firmly believed” that Neville did not hold strong appeal to under-18s. And they added The Overlap, a YouTube series sponsored by Sky Bet and produced by Neville, was “distinctly adult in tone and did not feature any content of a childish nature”.
Ad featuring Neville has fallen foul of regulators (BBC Studios/Simon Pantling)
Neville in action during his playing career (Getty Images)As of March 2023, Neville had 5,504,262 Twitter /X followers, of which 1% were aged 13 to 17, as were 5% of his 1.6 million Instagram followers. Twitter/X believed the advert did not breach any of their current policies and said they had not received any complaints in relation to it.
The ASA said: “Although they made up a small proportion of his total followers, we considered that over 135,000 followers aged under 18 was a significant number in absolute terms.” It concluded the ad was irresponsible, adding: “We told Sky Bet not to include a person or character who had strong appeal to those under 18 years of age in their advertising in future.”
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