The Health Lottery has been reprimanded by the ASA for implying that buying a lottery ticket is a solution to financial worries and security.
The ASA received a complaint from The Gambling Reform & Society Perception Group (GRASP) about an advert published in The Daily Express.
The advert had a headline of “Mortgage? What mortgage?” while the underneath text read “Now two chances to win £100K”.
GRASP said 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.
The Health Lottery defended the ad as part of a series about what you could do with lottery winnings. The other ads included headlines such as “Love one of these” next to a photo of a villa and “I paid for the grandkids to go to uni”.
The Health Lottery said showing different ways for a lottery winner to spend their winnings was a standard advertising technique and in no way depicted participation in a lottery as a solution to financial concerns or a way to achieve financial security. It added that the top prize of £100,000 was set at a level that was too low to imply financial security.
The ASA disagreed and ruled that the advert breached the CAP Code on social responsibility and lotteries, which prohibits marketing communications from suggesting that participating in a lottery can be a solution to financial concerns or a way to achieve financial security.
“Because the ad suggested that someone who had won the lottery could pay off their debts, the implication was that participation in the lottery was a way of solving financial concerns or achieving financial security,” it ruled today.
The ASA banned the advert from appearing again and told The Health Lottery to take care in the future not to imply that participating in a lottery was a solution to financial concerns or a way to achieve financial security.
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