Three adverts with an Easter bunny, a robot DJ and cartoon princesses have landed Play’n GO Malta in hot water with the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).
Play’n GO has been criticised by the ASA for the adverts, which appeared alongside email inboxes, including those that belonged to children, as their imagery was deemed likely to have a strong appeal to people under 18 years of age.
Two complaints were received by the authority about the casino gaming content provider’s adverts seen beside their own or their child’s email inbox. These complaints challenged whether the ad’s content was likely to be of strong appeal to under-18s. The three banner ads from Play’n GO were seen in April 2025.
Adverts in question
Advert A, seen beside the email inboxes of two children, showed a cartoon Easter bunny in a superhero outfit holding a silver egg in one hand and a basket of eggs in the other with text stating “MYSTERY EGG SURPRISE”, “Easter Eggs” and “EASTER EGGSPEDITION”.
Advert B, shown next to an email inbox, featured a cartoon robot DJ with a purple screen for a face, displaying white pixels, with one arm raised and the other hovering over a turntable. It included text which said: “SPINNING RECORDS INTO THE BEAT”.
Advert C, seen next to a child’s email inbox, included three anime-style, cartoon princesses with text that read “Moon Princess Origins”.
All the ads featured the Play’n GO logo and an 18+ symbol, while the latter two adverts also included the UK Gambling Commission and BeGambleAware.org logos.
Play’n GO’s response
In its response, Play’n GO stated that each advert was for a separate slot title – the Moon Princess series; Spinnin’ Records into the Beat; and a game with an Easter theme – and designed to appeal to players of legal age across various jurisdictions.
While the provider admitted that adverts could be appealing to children, they believed the images were popular with adults and that gameplay “required an adult mindset” and so couldn’t be attractive to children.
The adverts were also run through AdRoll, a programmatic advertising platform, didn’t carry age restrictions, and were identified as related to gambling during the bidding process for advertising space to make sure they were only served to websites that had opted to include such adverts.
Play’n GO mentioned that users who visited their website could be retargeted with their ads on other websites, but a cookie-consent banner on their website meant “tracking or retargeting activities were only undertaken with a user’s consent”.
Despite not being an operator or offering gambling opportunities on its website, visitors are still required to confirm they are of legal gambling age in their respective jurisdictions when visiting the Play’n GO website, according to the ASA report.
The provider viewed this as “an additional safeguard to help ensure that re-targeted ads were subsequently directed towards individuals aged 18 and over in the UK”.
Play’n GO did note that an adult user “could previously have visited their website and provided consent, and then a child could see the retargeted ad alongside a free, web-based email account because they were using the same device at the same IP address”, describing it as an “acknowledged limitation within programmatic advertising”.
As such, Play’n GO stated the adverts had been appropriately audience-targeted, but acknowledged they had been “inadvertently served alongside a child’s mailbox due to factors beyond their direct control”.
Adroll added that the provider “took measures to deter players under the age of 18 through the age-gate on the website”, and that they didn’t serve ads to try and reach individuals under 18 and believed the ads “were not directed at, or likely to appeal to, those under 18, and had been either a “lookalike” prospecting or retargeting campaign”.
ASA’s assessment
However, in its assessment, the ASA has upheld the complaint against Play’n GO, as it considered all the ads were likely to be of strong appeal to under-18s. The adverts must not appear again in their current form, and Play’n GO Malta has been told not to include imagery that was likely to have a strong appeal to those under 18 in their future ads.
The authority said the Easter bunny in Advert A suggested the Easter bunny was dressed as a superhero taking part in an Easter egg hunt, which is popular amongst children, and there likely to strongly appeal to under 18s.
For Advert B, the ASA made the same case that it was likely to be of strong appeal to under-18s, as the authority stated that a cartoon robot DJ-ing is an activity likely to appeal to young persons.
For Advert C, the ASA noted that the colourful costumes and the anime styling of the cartoon princesses were likely to have a strong appeal to under-18s as well.
“We considered that it would have been acceptable for the ads to appear in a medium where under-18s could, for all intents and purposes, be entirely excluded from the audience,” stated the ASA.
“That would apply in circumstances where those who saw the ads had been robustly age-verified as being 18 or older, such as through marketing lists that had been validated by payment data or credit checking.
“We considered that the targeting measures used by Adroll, which relied on self-declaration of age of users entering the Play’n GO website and retargeting based on that data, as well as prospecting targeting using browsing behaviours, were not sufficiently robust to ensure under-18s were entirely excluded from the audience. We also understood that two of the ads had been served to space alongside the email inboxes of children.
“We therefore considered that Play’n GO Malta had not excluded under-18s from the audience with the highest level of accuracy required for gambling ads, the content of which was likely to appeal strongly to that age group.
“For those reasons, we concluded that the ads were irresponsible and breached the Code.”