ASA Upholds Complaint Against Ladbrokes’ Ladbucks Ads

The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has upheld complaints against Ladbrokes alleging that the operator’s Ladbucks offering could appeal to minors.

Complaint Says Ladbucks Appeal to Minors

The ASA emphasized that its current action relates to TV and VOD ads, which were originally aired in December 2024. Essentially the same, the two ads promoted Ladbrokes’ latest product, Ladbucks.

Ladbrokes described Ladbucks as tokens that allow players to enjoy free-to-play games and earn a variety of awards, such as free spins and free bets, among others. Ladbrokes’ ad promised that the company would offer some 100 million Ladbucks every single week. The ad furthermore showcased imagery of coins displaying the initials Lb as the company invited players to “start collecting.”

The complaints insisted that the term Ladbucks could have a strong appeal among minors and suggested that this could be a possible breach of the BCAP and CAP Codes.

Ladbrokes Denies Trying to Appeal to Youths

The ASA investigated the matter and learned that the Ladbucks were only available to adult players, had no monetary value and expired if not used. They could only be used by players who had logged in with Ladbrokes accounts and could not be universally used across the Ladbrokes platform.

Ladbrokes justified the name of this digital currency with the popularity of the word “bucks,” which is a colloquialism for dollars. While Ladbrokes acknowledged that “bucks” was a term that many video games used (Fortnite’s V-bucks and Roblox’s Robux, for example), it argued that the word had “no origins in youth culture” and therefore did not have an inherent appeal to minors.

Ladbrokes added that its restrictions should prevent minors from being attracted to its products and expressed a firm belief that there was no risk of the term being associated with video gaming.

The parties that aired the ad likewise believed that the ad was compliant with the ASA’s codes.

ASA Upheld the Complaints

After careful consideration, the ASA decided to uphold the complaints. It argued that, per the BCAP and CAP guidance, operators should avoid association with video games that are popular among minors.

When making its decision, the ASA also considered the broad cultural popularity of Fortnite and Roblox, which are played by millions of people. It also considered the fact that Fortnite and Roblox content accumulates millions of watched hours on YouTube.

The regulator therefore disagreed with the notion that the word “bucks” is not associated with youth culture. As a result, it deemed Ladbucks to be a name that can have a strong appeal to children, which was further reinforced by the coin-like visualization of the digital token.

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.

ASA decision

As a result, the Ladbucks ads must not appear again in their current form.