Television commercial for operator’s CasinoRip.com multi-player online blackjack site has fallen foul of UK watchdog over claims that its offers greater rewards.
Wednesday 10th March 2010
Leading skill games developer GameAccount Global Limited has had a television advert for its CasinoRip.com online blackjack site banned by the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) over claims that it offers greater rewards.
The advert in question showed a serious-looking man and woman joining a casino table and playing blackjack while a voice-over stated ‘Everyone loves to play blackjack but if you play against the casino, it's the casino that always wins’.
The couple was then shown to be increasingly stressed as a croupier took all of the chips from the table with on-screen text reading ‘dealer wins again’. The man then suddenly loses his shirt and is shown looking embarrassed while the voice-over continues with ‘if you play against real people, there's less chance of you losing your shirt’.
The participants are subsequently shown looking happy while they play each other without a croupier present. The voice-over states ‘at CasinoRip.com, you play blackjack against other players so a real person always wins, guaranteed’. The man is then shown winning chips with the on-screen text reading ‘real player wins’ followed by the voice-over with ‘don’t play the casino, play a real person at CasinoRip.com’.
However, one complainant objected that the claim ‘if you play against real people, there's less chance of losing your shirt’ misleadingly implied that players were more likely to win with the advertiser than with a typical casino. In addition, the claim ‘if you play against the casino, it's the casino that always wins’ was questioned because CasinoRip.com takes a percentage of players' stakes up to 7.5 percent on every game.
The ASA upheld both complaints and concluded that the advert ‘exaggerated the chances of individuals winning blackjack games through CasinoRip.com’.
“We considered that while none of the players could be beaten by the casino, it remained the case that the chances of winning games in both the long and short term depended on the skills of those around the table,” read a statement from the ASA.
“We accepted that skilled players would be more likely to win against a table of weaker opponents but considered that GameAccount had not supplied evidence to show that the average player was more likely to win against other players than when playing against the house in a normal casino as implied by the claim ‘if you play against real people, there's less chance of losing your shirt’.
“While traditional casinos collected a rake, we noted with regard to their multi-player games, CasinoRip.com took a commission of between five and 7.5 percent from the total pot of stakes in each game, which we considered to be much the same thing.
“While we accepted that one of the players on a CasinoRip.com multi-player game would always win, we considered that GameAccount had not shown that the house consistently won in most hands of casino blackjack and concluded that the ad misleadingly implied that the service offered greater rewards over traditional casinos than were actually available.”
