The sweepstakes casino sector’s continued growth has led stakeholders to launch the Social and Promotional Games Association, advocating for responsible social casino gaming.
Acting as a trade body for the sector, the SPGA has brought together companies within the social casino space to uphold player protection and create a “safe, legal and engaging” social gaming environment.
“The formation of the SPGA is a critical step toward establishing a clear and cohesive voice for the social sweepstakes industry,” said Seth Schorr, CEO at FSG Digital Inc.
“By creating this association, we are committed to helping regulators and policymakers understand how our industry’s products work and how they comply with the appropriate state and federal laws.”
Sweepstake casinos allow players to access free-to-play casinos that often operate using in-game currencies, with players not always needing to make any deposits while still being able to gain prizes.
The sector has faced much scrutiny in recent years, with some seeing social casino offerings as illegal operations due to their lack of licensing. Also, some unlicensed sweepstake casinos will allow players to make deposits to purchase in-game currencies.
The SPGA has established internal committees to focus on two key areas, player safeguards and regulatory compliance, to provide regulators, policymakers and players with “a comprehensive understanding” of sweepstakes offerings.
Under the player safeguards initiative, the SPGA will develop educational resources for players while expanding mechanisms to address consumer complaints and enhance player protection.
Meanwhile, the regulatory compliance initiative will develop policy principles to “maintain alignment with the established regulatory and legal structures that underpin social games”.
This will hope to provide regulators and policymakers with a comprehensive understanding of the compliant and consumer-first operating model of the sweepstakes sector, highlighting the ways operators ensure player protection.
“The SPGA is committed to fostering a cohesive industry voice through collaboration among member companies,” added Camilla Wright of Red Knot Communications, a spokesperson for the new industry body.
“Our goal is to provide forums for sharing knowledge and best practice mutual support and to create an environment that puts consumers first.
“By prioritising transparency and responsible practices and communicating this effectively, we will have an industry that thrives as it ensures that millions of adult American consumers can continue this form of online entertainment with confidence.”
The SPGA will kick-off these initiatives on 1 October by bringing together industry experts for a discussion on the future of social and promotional gaming.
Eilers-Krejcik’s Managing Director of Digital and Interactive Gaming, Matt Kaufman, recently came out in support of social casinos, explaining that “sweepstakes are operating within the confines of legal constructions of sweepstakes contests and are acting entirely within their rights”.
The Advertising Standards Authority has banned multiple advertisements from social casino apps for misleading players and implying they could win real-world money or tangible prizes.
Each of the adverts appeared as paid-for TikTok ads for the following five companies:
The ASA noted that each company’s advert implied that their games were gambling products where real-world money or tangible prizes could be won and withdrawn and therefore were misleading.
Slot gameplay imagery within the adverts was spotlighted by the ASA, such as a casino slot machine and graphics being visible within Huuuge Global’s Billionaire Casino adverts, a roulette-style wheel and slot machine in SpinX Games’ adverts, as well as gameplay footage similar to that of casino-based slot games in Dataverse Co Gamehaus’ adverts.
Verbiage within the adverts themselves was also highlighted by the authority, such as the terms “hitting the jackpot” and “payout” within Zeroo Gravity Games’ Cash Tornado advert and “super-high odds” and “jackpot” in Mobee’s Ignite Classic Slots advert, as associated with gambling and therefore could be misinterpreted as such by players.
Each of the five listed companies was deemed to have breached rules 3.1 and 3.3 of the UK Code of Non-broadcast Advertising and Direct & Promotional Marketing with their advertisements. CAP Code 3.1 states: “Marketing communications must not materially mislead or be likely to do so”.
Meanwhile, CAP Code 3.3 reads: “Marketing communications must not mislead the consumer by omitting material information. They must not mislead by hiding material information or presenting it in an unclear, unintelligible, ambiguous or untimely manner.
“Material information is information that the consumer needs to make informed decisions in relation to a product. Whether the omission or presentation of material information is likely to mislead the consumer depends on the context, the medium and, if the medium of the marketing communication is constrained by time or space, the measures that the marketer takes to make that information available to the consumer by other means”.
In addition, Mobee Co’s “lack of response and apparent disregard for the Code” was deemed a breach of CAP Code 1.7, which states that: “any unreasonable delay in responding to the ASA’s enquiries will normally be considered a breach of the Code”.
The ASA told each of the five companies in question that the adverts must not appear again and that they must ensure that they did not imply consumers could win real-world money or tangible prizes.
The rulings against the five social casinos are part of a wider work by the ASA on paid-for gambling-like ads.
An ASA spokesperson said: “We understood that social casino apps emulate slot machines or other casino-based games, but that people couldn’t win or withdraw any real-world money. But all of these ads failed to make clear that this was the case, giving people a misleading impression.
“These rulings form part of a wider piece of work on paid-for gambling-like ads, identified for investigation following intelligence we’ve gathered. The rules are clear, these ads shouldn’t mislead consumers by creating the impression that they can win real-world prizes if this isn’t the case.”
