UK to ban games with cartoons

The United Kingdom Gambling Commission and the Advertising Standards Authority have ordered gambling websites to take down games with children’s cartoon characters in them.

Over 450 online gambling websites will have to take down several games with cartoon characters in them after the United Kingdom Gambling Commission (UKGC) and the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) decided to block them. Both regulatory bodies have issued a letter asking operators to remove such games in order to stop children from playing on gambling websites.

Some websites such as William Hill, Bet365, 888 and many others used cartoon characters to promote their operations, but the regulators consider they are luring children into gambling and decided to forbid those type of games. The decision obbeys Committee of Advertising Practice’s (CAP) rules, which states the prohibition of games with a ‘particular appeal’ to children.

Tom Watson, shadow culture secretary had recently targetted bookies saying that there was a ‘loophole’ which companies were ‘ruthlessly exploiting’ and called for the UKGC to ban these games.

Politicians and regulators were concerned about the 450k underage gamblers that play in England and Wales weekly, as they considered that this number was leading the next generations to get hooked on gambling, and so decided to ban cartoon-character-based games.