888.com has again fallen foul to the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) with its latest casino TV advertising. Last year the bingo brand was criticised for implying that someone could win £5million pounds on a single bingo game for free in the Golden Ticket campaign. It did cross my mind that maybe 888.com just wanted to be up there with Tombola, or they feel that there is no such thing as bad publicity.

The latest 888 TV advertisement stated "£ 8,888,888 could be yours, only at 888.com. Get eight spins absolutely free. No deposit. No charge". On-screen text stated "T&C apply. No deposit required. Registrants post 12/07 only". One person decided that it was false adverting as if the person did win, they had to wager a certain amount of money before a withdrawal could be made. The ASA have upheld the complaint as this detail was not made clear in the original advertising. Tombola managed to have several of their adverts banned by the ASA as well.

Other bingo operators would benefit from taking note from the ruling. Many online bingo sites hide stringent withdrawal criteria within their terms and conditions and make it difficult for players to withdraw funds from their account especially if at any point the player has benefitted from promotional bonuses. At the point the government decides to overhaul the legislation and requires online gambling sites to be regulated the operators will no doubt have to be much more transparent about their terms and conditions as the Gambling Commission will surely not tolerate such practices.

888 said that new players could participate in the £8 million jackpot and win without having to deposit or ager any amounts however there were other prizes with other conditions.

"The overall promotion included a number of other prizes in addition to the £ 8,888,888 jackpot and it was possible to win smaller prizes up to £50 with the free spins but, in those cases, there were certain additional conditions that had to be met before those prizes could be cashed," 888 explained.

For other smaller prizes, non-jackpot bonus prizes and any accumulated winnings could only be cashed after an entrant had made the required minimum deposit into their account, and wagered an amount totalling 40 times the amount of the Bonus Prize.

The adjudicator pointed out: "We considered that viewers would expect that, because other prizes were available in the jackpot game, all wins using the 'free' spins would have the same terms and conditions.

"Because the ad did not make clear that the spins were only free in limited circumstances, we concluded that the ad was misleading.

"The ad breached BCAP Code rules 3.1 and 3.2 (Misleading advertising), 3.10 (Qualifications) and 3.25 (Free claims), and must not be broadcast again in its current form.

888 Ladies is Currently Running the £5 Million

888 Ladies Bingo are running the £5 million giveaway game at the moment and this is the last weekend that you can win tickets for the game that takes place on the 6th March. Be warned, don’t get to excited about it however as per the ASA ruling last time they launched the promotion the odds of winning arn't that great. In fact you have better chances of getting to Mars than winning £5 million. In fact its one of those promotions where I would be quite happy to promise to go into work with no clothes on if someone ever manages to take the top prize!!!