The UK Advertising Standards Authority has banned an ad for Ladbrokes after ruling that the term ‘Ladbucks’ was likely to appeal to people under the age of 18.

The TV and video-on-demand ads for Ladbrokes’ rewards programme prompted two complaints from viewers who believed the term ‘Ladbucks’ was likely to be of strong appeal to people below the legal gambling age.

Ladbucks are free tokens that are awarded to players who participate in certain promotions and are redeemable in the ‘Ladbucks Store’ or the ‘Ladbucks arcade’ by logged-in players over the age of 18. The tokens have no monetary value and expiry if not used.

In response to the complaints, Ladbrokes explained that the name Ladbucks was chosen as a play on the word Ladbrokes and the term bucks, with the term bucks being widely used to refer to money or a unit of currency.

The company added that the word had no origins in youth culture and was not considered to be of inherent strong appeal to under-18s. 

This was rejected by the ASA, which said that the term bucks was used in the in-game currency V-bucks for the children’s game Fortnite, and the Robux currency from the game Roblox. The ASA also noted that Ladbucks used imagery of a poker chip, as did some of the children’s games.

The advertising regulator cited research which shows that Roblox and Fortnite are popular with children as young as 10, with 24 per cent of children aged 10–12 years old playing Roblox in the UK.

“Based on that data, we considered a significant number of under-18s were likely to be familiar with those games and their specific features, which included reward schemes that involved earning and using coins in associated game stores. For those reasons, we considered both games and their associated features were strongly associated with youth culture,” the ASA said in its ruling.

The regulator also took issue with the word ‘lad’, stating that “whilst we accepted the use of the prefix ‘lad’ was for its link to the brand, and we did not consider the brand’s name itself to be of appeal to children, we also considered that ‘lad’ was a colloquial term for a boy or young man. In the context of the ad and its use alongside the word buck, the word lad would have also been recognised and of appeal to some under-18s.”

On the subject of the token’s imagery, the ASA noted that the Ladbucks token was “round, shiny around the edges with an initial in its centre”, features that are all present in the design of a V-buck.

“Although we acknowledged that Ladbrokes offered poker and casino games, we considered it was not the use of poker chip imagery in isolation, but the use of the token’s imagery when used in conjunction with the term Ladbucks, that was likely to have been recognisable and perceived by many under-18s as similar to those in-game currencies of online games that were of strong appeal to under-18s,” the ASA concluded.

“For those reasons we concluded the name Ladbucks, when considered alongside the imagery and the application of the coin in the ads, was depicted in a manner which was similar to features in video games popular with children. We therefore considered the term in the ads was likely to be of strong appeal to under-18s and breached the Code.”

The ad was banned for breaching BCAP Code rules 17.4.5 (Gambling) and CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 16.1 and 16.3.12 (Gambling).