The UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has reprimanded the Health Lottery over complaints made relating to a Facebook post on January 22 of this year.
Amongst the lengthy post was the statement “Up to £500K can be won every week That’s 5 draws per week each with up to £100K jackpot,” claims which complainants challenged were misleading.
Responding, the Health Lottery stated that the purpose of the wording was to highlight the fact that five draws a week were operated, each with a top prize of “up to £100k,” a claim used in ads since it commenced operation in October 2011.
In addition it was also noted that prizes in society lotteries were tied to ticket sales, and rules governed under section 99 of the Gambling Act 2005, with jackpot calculations also set out in their terms and conditions.
The Health Lottery, as part of their response, also stated that: “the monetary amount of a prize was determined by ticket sales.
“Therefore if five of the winning numbers were matched on a player’s ticket, the player would win a prize equivalent to 10% of total ticket sales for that draw, up to a maximum prize value of £100k.”
As well as this, discussions had also been undertaken with the Gambling Commission regarding appropriate advertising wording, with facts and figures of jackpots also supplied on a quarterly basis.
In providing its final assessment the ASA took into account interpretations of the claim and the Gambling act, before concluding: “We acknowledged that the references to the jackpots were preceded with “up to”, making it clear that the top jackpot amounts were not always available.
“However, we noted from the information provided by the Health Lottery that, although there had been winners of £100,000 in the past, there had been no winners of that amount since February 2015 when five weekly draws had been introduced.
“We therefore considered the claim “up to £100k” no longer represented a realistic amount that was likely to be won as a jackpot prize. We therefore concluded that the ad was misleading.”
The ad, which was found to have breached CAP Code rules 3.1 (misleading advertising), 3.7 (substantiation) and 3.9 (qualification), must not appear in its current form and The Health Lottery has also been told not to exaggerate any future winnings available.
Source: SBC News
