Fruity King, the mobile casino powered by IGT subsidiary Probability, has got into hot water with the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) over a paid for post on Twitter. The tweet, which has since been removed, appeared to liken football with child abuse.
It read: “Arsene Whinger has suffered more abuse from Arsenal fans over the last 9 years than a Yemeni child slave in Saudi Arabia. FA-Cup”.
The ASA received a complaint about the analogy of football relating to child abuse and challenged whether the advert could considered offensive.
The ASA decided the advert would likely cause ‘widespread offense’ and that it was ‘entirely inappropriate’.
In its ruling the ASA said it was aware of international reports around child slavery and trafficking.
“We therefore considered that comparing the amount of abuse a football manager received to that of a Yemeni child trafficked into slavery was entirely inappropriate for an ad and concluded that the promoted tweet was likely to cause serious and widespread offence,” the ASA said in its ruling.
Fruity King have been told to remove the advert with immediate effect and reminded to take particular care when referencing real world scenarios or current affairs in their adverts.
Fruity King parent company Total Odds Media blamed an advertising agency with whom they were no longer working with for publishing the advert.
The mobile casino apologized for “any offence caused to the Yemeni community” argued that the tweet caused “widespread offence” and rather is was “tasteless joke with no malicious intent”.