ATG rapped over self-exclusion ad failures

Konsumentverket, the Swedish consumer ombudsman (KO), has warned former horse racing monopoly AB Trav och Galopp (ATG) over advertising messages sent to self-excluded players.

The KO said that ATG sent direct marketing to 77 individuals who had self-excluded from gambling through the Spelpaus national self-exclusion tool, as well as more than 1,900 marketing messages sent to people who had excluded themselves from receiving direct marketing.

In addition, the KO found that ATG did not clearly indicate age restrictions on its products in some of its advertisements.

As a result, the ombudsman warned ATG that if it were to violate the rules regarding self-exclusion again, it will face a SEK3m (£255,000/€285,000/$322,000) fine, while it will face a SEK1.5m fine if it fails to include age limits in promotional material.

The KO said it started the investigation in February 2020 after receiving reports of self-excluded players receiving ATG ads and promotions, which is forbidden by Chapter 15, Section 2 of the Swedish Gambling Act.

The KO also looked into whether ATG had correctly specified age limits, a detail that ATG said was reported to the ombudsman by rival operator Kindred.

ATG said that the messages to players who had used Spelpaus occurred through error and that they notified gambling regulator Spelinspektionen of this, as well as taking steps to ensure it does not happen again, when it occurred.

“We have made mistakes and accept the Consumer Agency's decision,” Katarina Widman, ATG's Chief Commercial Officer, said.

The operator added, however, that these messages to players were not ads, but merely information about player accounts.

ATG also said that its advertising messages that lacked age limits were exclusively text messages that were sent only to existing players who were verified as being 18 or older and  said the lack of an explicit mention of age limits was again due to an error.

“Since ATG has directed gambling ads directly to players who were temporarily suspended from gambling, the marketing is considered inappropriate and ATG should therefore be prohibited from sending direct advertisements regarding gambling products to this category of consumers,” the KO said. “ATG's statement that the direct mail was sent primarily for information purposes does not change KO's assessment.”

The KO noted that the fact ATG was confident all players receiving the ad were at least 18 contributed to the potential financial penalty being low.

“We reviewed our controls following the incidents,” Widman said. “[Now] in all cases we have further strengthened our controls to ensure that these events are not repeated,” Widman said.

Yesterday (15 June), Spelinspektionen set out plans to launch a new marketing campaign to promote the Spelpaus self-exclusion scheme, after admitting that players' awareness of the system was limited. At present, around 52,000 are signed up with Spelpaus.se.