online casino crackdown news report las vegas

However, it said it was “in the process of tweaking certain marketing materials” and had “therefore removed these pages from our site, to address specific concerns”, and would replace them soon. PlayOJO said it had not been requested to remove the page on its website offering the “hot” or “cold” feature and had not done so.

However, the ASA’s draft ruling against PlayOJO is thought to be the first time a regulator has specifically targeted the feature, with potential implications for the wider gambling industry. The ASA’s draft ruling warned that PlayOJO’s marketing did contain elements that suggested players could exert control over game outcomes, including the exhortation to “choose your destiny”.īookmakers have previously come under fire for advertising “hot” and “cold” numbers on fixed-odds betting terminals, the controversial digital roulette machines whose stakes were slashed from £100 to £2 after an outcry about their links to addiction. An example of this is the mistaken belief that a roulette ball is more likely to land on a number because it has not done so for a while.

The ruling, if confirmed, will affect whether firms can exploit the “gambler’s fallacy”, the false notion that previous outcomes have any effect on what will happen next. The feature was also promoted via a TV ad in which a tarot card reader gave a customer advice while secretly using the PlayOJO mobile phone app to inform her predictions.Īlthough the ASA has yet to make a final decision, a draft version of its recommendation seen by the Guardian indicates it will uphold a complaint that promoting the feature was “misleading” and “irresponsible”. The page on PlayOJO’s website that included the promotional material was not available at time of publication but could be found via cached versions.

Online casino crackdown news report las vegas