Age appropriate? More clarity needed
A top priority for both the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) and the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) is to keep young people a safe distance from gambling. For this reason, it’s against the law for content promoting gambling to be tailored towards young people.
There are specific rules in place to ensure that gambling isn’t promoted to younger audiences, and one of these is that any sportspeople featured in ads should be over the age of 25 and not appeal especially to young people.
Midnite in hot water over Son Heung-min post
Despite there being many rules that guide appropriate advertising, there are some murky ambiguities in play. Midnite, the popular UK casino brand operated by Dribble Media Ltd., has been sanctioned by the ASA over a social media post, and not for the first time.
The ASA considers social media posts to be a form of advertising, subject to the same rules as traditional adverts. Midnite apparently breached these by posting a video on X which featured ex-Spurs player Son Heung-min holding the Europa League trophy, with the caption: “How bro starts acting after winning £8.10 from a 30p 8 fold acca bet”.
Son Heung-min is aged 33, well over the 25 requirement. However, the ASA determined that featuring him would make the advert appeal to young people
Who raised the complaint?
The complaint originated from researchers at the University of Bristol, who have registered complaints about Midnite’s social media in the past. The University of Bristol (UoB) hosts a gambling harms research hub which analyses gambling advertising.
This isn’t the first time that the UoB researchers have voiced their concerns. In October 2024, they published a report alleging that the self-regulation of the gambling industry in Britain had failed.
While they make some valid points, the report was largely undermined by the vague interpretation of data, unscientific terminology, unfounded assumptions and other weaknesses.
It appears that there may be an amount of confirmation bias at play here, with these researchers actively seeking to confirm pre-existing beliefs, rather than taking an informed and objective stance.
Editorial vs advertising?
Midnite appealed against the accusation, on the grounds that its social media post was editorial in nature, rather than an advert, and that its primary purpose was not to drive traffic to Midnite. The ASA, however, felt differently, and ruled that the post did constitute advertising.
It’s hard to argue against the idea that social media is a form of advertising, but this incident does reveal holes in the legislation. If the guidelines are murky enough for this to even need debating, then there’s work to be done.
Section 16 of the CAP Code, which all UKGC licence-holders must follow, does attempt to define what constitutes “marketing communications”, and “Editorial content is specifically excluded from the remit of the Code”. However, the boundary between advertising and editorial content is blurry.
Precedent
Midnite has breached ASA rules before. In September, for the same reasons, Midnite was ordered to take down a post featuring Real Madrid player Trent Alexander-Arnold.
The ASA ruled then that “the purpose of the post was to promote the brand through creating a viral video, and that it had featured a direct reference to gambling. It was therefore directly connected with the supply of betting services and was an ad falling within the scope of the CAP Code.”
It seems safe to assume that, if the same thing happens for yet a third time, the ASA may come down hard on Midnite’s operator, perhaps issuing a fine.
Over the past couple of years, both Paddy Power and a gambling affiliate website have been ordered by the ASA to take down adverts featuring Luis Suarez and Mason Mount, respectively, because the players were 24 when the ads appeared..
Similarly, in October 2025, the ASA ruled that a post associated with the gambling company Kwiff and Sir Lewis Hamilton had a “strong appeal” to under-18s, because of the latter’s associations with video games, toys and the fact that he had appeared on an episode of CBeebies Bedtime Stories.
Room for interpretation
ASA guidelines rely on subjective language such as “are or appear to be under 25” and “likely to be of particular appeal”.
To gambling operators, there is too much scope for interpretation of these rules for them to be practically useful. The fact that Son Heung-min is aged 33 is a clear illustration of these subjectivity issues.
By extension, a coach, actor or musician in their 40s or 50s could “appear to be” appealing to under-18s, making the standard potentially very broad.
Improvement and clarity needed
These vague rules might give regulators some flexibility, but they also open the door for inconsistent enforcement. For a ruling to be both fair and effective, evidence-based criteria could be established, and quantifiable measures put in place.
It is the ASA’s responsibility to clear up these ambiguities and ensure that operators have solid guidelines. One approach could be to provide clear, annotated, real-world examples of both marketing message social media posts, and editorial content. Such examples could clarify exactly where the line between these things is.
To reduce subjectivity, the ASA might consider a ban on ads that feature any current players, or a hard minimum age limit such as 30 or 35.
Some countries have introduced outright bans on gambling advertisements. This seems heavy-handed and unnecessary considering the fact that more effective regulation, with clearer definitions, could resolve many issues related to gambling adverts.
Social media: The Underlying Issue?
While addressing the issue of Midnite’s social media post, the ASA rightly questioned the validity of age control systems on social media platforms, particularly X.
On X, users ‘self-verify’ their age, which essentially means that there’s nothing in place to stop young people using a false date of birth.
Many of these platforms thrive thanks to their young userbase, and it’s hard not to consider the possibility that some social media companies may be willfully negligent when it comes to verifying the age of their users.
In support of this, Ofcom found that 32% of social media users aged between 8 and 17 had a registered age of 18 or above.
There’s a lack of accountability here. We all know that social media can be seriously detrimental to wellbeing, particularly for young people. In Australia, for example, under-16s were recently banned from using social media completely.
Both social media platforms and gambling operators deliver services with potentially addictive or harmful qualities – gambling companies carry out stringent background checks and thorough age verifications, so why can’t social media companies do the same?
Summary
Gaps and inconsistencies like this are bad for regulators as well as casino operators. The buck cannot stop entirely with the operators, especially when they’re trying to navigate a highly competitive marketplace ruled by ambiguous legislation.
Ultimately, this issue (and perhaps many others) would become significantly more manageable if social media companies like X used proper age verification processes, or acted with a degree of social responsibility.