Health Lottery ad banned
Ad banned for implying that £100,000 prize could be used to ease financial problems or help winners achieve financial security.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has ruled that a Health Lottery advert must not appear again in its current form, after being seen as suggesting lotteries as a solution to financial difficulties.
The national press ad carried the slogan “Mortgage? What Mortgage?” causing Gambling Reform & Society Perception Group (GRASP) to query whether it implied that taking part in a lottery could ease financial concerns or help winners achieve financial security.
The Health Lottery Ltd argued that the ad was part of a campaign suggesting what could be done with the top prize of £100,000 which the operator said was around the average mortgage value in the UK, based on debt statistics published by Credit Action in August this year.
The company added that making suggestions as to what winners could spend their fortune on was “a standard advertising technique [which] in no way depicted participation in a lottery as a solution to financial concerns or a way to achieve financial security.”
The Daily Express newspaper, which carried the ad and is also owned by Health Lottery proprietor Richard Desmond, stated that it had received no complaints.
However, the ASA upheld GRASP’s complaint, ruling that the headline “implied someone who had participated in the lottery and won would be in a position to pay off their mortgage debt.”
The regulatory body disagreed with The Health Lottery’s defence, citing the CAP Code’s provision which states: “Marketing communications must not suggest that participating in a lottery can be a solution to financial concerns … or a way to achieve financial security. Advertisers may, however, refer to other benefits of winning a prize.”
“For these reasons,” the ASA concluded, “[“¦] the ad was irresponsible because it implied that participating in a lottery was a solution to financial concerns or a way to achieve financial security.”
It becomes the second Health Lottery ad to be banned, after publicity material was judged to be misleading for seeming to claim that a £250,000 prize was regularly offered in its draws in August. This came as the operator won a High Court ruling, after National Lottery operator Camelot initiated legal proceedings over the company being awarded a licence by the UK Gambling Commission.