William Hill Accused Over Misleading Promotions
William Hill was warned by the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) and was asked to ensure clear terms and conditions of their promotions. That was announced after the UK’s most popular gambling provider has been found guilty of misleading players via ‘risk-free’ promotions. The offers (‘Family Guy’ & ‘Christmas Cracker’) were listed on the site’s main page in December 2015 and promised players who made a stake of between £5 and £10 to get risk-free spins after losing from their initial bets.
William Hill Binho players complained in front of the ASA about false and deceptive promotions from the company’s December promotions catalogue. The two ads promoted were marketed as risk-less and stated “£5 Risk-Free with Family Guy… Play Now” and “Christmas Cracker – Get £10 Risk-Free on the Pig Wizard”. As per the terms and conditions, listed under the two deals, the games were risk-free and also claimed that any player who make a bet of between £5 and £10 would get a refund on their initial losses. However, one of the customers of William Hill complained that the T&C of the two offers were unclear and even though it was promised that they would get their money back, the refund was not available if they didn’t place further bets. Another user of William Hill’s promotions claimed that he was refused to get his £5 refund and was asked to make a bigger wager first.
An investigation was launched by the Advertising Standards Authority (the regulator body, responsible for preventing advertising breaches and pre-vetting ads complaints) after the two punters urged the regulating body to check their complaints. Although from William Hill refused to admit that their promotions were misleading and claimed that the consumers should be able to understand the rules, the results of the investigation showed the opposite. ASA agreed that the terms and conditions that were applied to both promotions were unclear and debatable. The famous betting platform was publicly criticized from ASA for featuring contradictory wording. The regulator insisted on re-setting out the promotions’ terms and conditions so that they become unambiguous and clearly worded. The agency also advised that the ads shouldn’t appear again in the form complained of. Shortly after, the two ads were banned. In response to the ban on the ads, a speaker from William Hill company said that they’ve learned their lesson from ASA’s decision and will regard the clear wording when defining the terms and conditions of their future promotions.
Our team has always been dedicated to providing you with the best service as we can. That’s why we usually inform you that you should be aware of the provider’s gaming and bonus rules and stress on the importance of reading the T&C’s. The latter will set out the terms of your membership with the certain gaming brand, so you should always know them well. We kindly remind you not to skip that boring part and read the small print carefully before start using the site and especially before you start betting with real money.