Sky Bet tweet featuring Gary Neville banned over gambling ad rules

A Sky Bet tweet featuring Gary Neville has been banned for breaking rules on gambling adverts.

The post used an embedded clip of the ex-footballer predicting Premier League winners on YouTube series The Overlap.

Sky Bet's logo appeared throughout the video, which ended with text stating: "Brought to you by Sky Bet".

The UK's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruled Neville was "likely to be of strong appeal to under-18s" - which Sky Bet rejected.

The ASA's code says gambling adverts should not appeal to children or young people, "especially by reflecting or being associated with youth culture".

They say their rules are based on the fact that gambling is not for under-18s, so adverts on the topic can't be directed at that age group in any way.

Sky Bet said The Overlap, sponsored by the company and produced by Neville, was "distinctly adult in tone and did not feature any content of a childish nature".

It also pointed out that the footballer, a star of Manchester United's "Class of '92", ended his professional career in 2011.

An 18-year-old today would have been five or six at the time, the company had argued.

But the ASA, which enforces UK advertising rules, said it had calculated Neville had 135,000 under-18 followers across Instagram and X, formerly known as Twitter.

It acknowledged this was a "small proportion" of his combined following on both, which was 7.1m when it launched its investigation in March 2023.

But the authority believed the overall number was "significant" enough to conclude the ad was irresponsible.

The ad featuring Neville was a promoted tweet so the ASA said SkyBet had been told not to publish it again.

Its ruling also bans them from featuring him again in any media that isn't strictly set up to exclude under-18s.

It said it had told Sky Bet not to include anyone with a strong appeal to under-18s in their future advertising.

The ASA said age figures for Neville's TikTok and Facebook followings were not available.

X told the regulator the ad did not breach any of its current policies and it had not received any complaints.

A spokesman for Sky Bet's parent company Flutter said: "We fundamentally disagree with this decision and the flawed process which led to this outcome - it defies both precedent and common sense.

"The ASA did not receive a single complaint from the public or wider stakeholders about the social media post in question."

It said it would also seek "an independent review" of the case.

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