back to article ASA raps Paddy Power over gambling dwarf ad

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has ordered online gambling outfit Paddy Power "not to repeat" the approach it adopted in a newspaper ad which showed a "short man" in the back of stretch limo flanked by women under the title "Who says you can't make money being short?" The offending advertisement, which appeared in …

COMMENTS

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  1. Tom Simnett
    Stop

    And yet...

    ...they do bugger all about broadband "unlimited" false advertising....

    Who's looking after us here, exactly?

  2. Cris Page
    Flame

    ASA? more like A**E*O*ES !

    ...And yet they allows ISP's to advertise *limited* "unlimited" connections, and to headline in large font a low monthly (introductory) fee that is only charged in the short term before reverting to a higher level for the bulk of a contract which is only shown in small font.

    As a regulator they really are pathetic!

  3. Tim

    Poor England

    Having moved here from Australia, I can't believe how seriously everyone takes themselves.

    An Ad like this is a joke, it's supposed to be funny. Talk about being stuffy!

    Sadly, Australia and New Zealand are slowly following suit, pulling funny ads from TV because 3 midgets got their knickers in a bunch.

    Why is Christian advertising allowed? I find it offensive!

    (Don't tell me to go back home! That's offensive!)

  4. Solomon Grundy

    One Complaint

    It only takes one complaint to get the advert police involved? That's silly. Why are there any advertisements in the UK at all? I find them all offensive.

  5. Steve
    Thumb Up

    @Cris and Tom

    Have you actually tried complaining to the ASA about misleading broadband advertising, you might find that they will actually do something, other than whine about it on a forum that is.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Paddy Power don't give a monkeys

    http://www.pp-gallery.com/landscape.php

    They put all their old ones up, banned or not, for us to have a laugh at. Quite right too - the ASA have got bigger problems, like Wimmin spending a fortune on facecreams that don't do anything, than whimsical ads featuring shortarses.

  7. John Imrie
    Happy

    Did the ASA ...

    just tell Paddy Power to pull the add because they think short men are ugly, and the only way a short person could passably be surrounded by beautiful women is because of the size of his wad.

  8. Steve

    Utter nonsense!

    This advert in no way suggested that gambling would lead to success with women - they implied that MONEY leads to glamorous women wanting to have sex with you and this is known to be true.

    They may have suggested that gambling can result in winning which will then reward you with money, but if this were untrue, it wouldn't be called gambling it would be called "giving away your money".

  9. Seán

    ASA hates midgets

    The ad is innocuous but the eye of the beholder is where the problem is. It's the ASA's prejudice against midgets which is at play here not Paddy Power. Considering bookies make most of their money thanks to midgets riding horses it'd be inexplicable for them to have a height bias.

    Isn't there a court of appeal against this state enforced bigotry? Why does the ASA hate to see a short guy hooked up with wealth chicks and good times?

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Cris and Tom, RE: Steve

    Agreed. You may find the ASA have never done anything, as they can only look at addverts on the basis of a complaint, and it is suprising few people complain.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Err

    @Tim - Did you notice the massive problem with gambling addiction in Australia? No? I guess that the families and friends of the people who are addicted to gambling probably don't find adverts like this funny. You don't notice any "Ciggies make you look hot to women" adverts any more, for good reason.

    @ Solomon Grundy - Yes it only takes one complaint to get the 'Advert Police' involved, how many complaints do you think it should take to get a regulator involved? If you complained about bad service to a utility regulator would you accept the answer "noone else has that problem, so we're not going to bother looking into it" Or if your house got burgled and the police said that it was the only house to be burgled in your street, therefore not a problem, what would you think? The ASA would probably have looked into this anyway as it is blatantly against the gambling advertising rules.

  12. Anonymous John

    Gambling dwarf ad

    It's not big, and it's not clever.

  13. Spleen

    @Fraser

    999 calls to the waaahmbulance service aside, are you seriously suggesting that people become addicted to gambling because they're convinced that if they keep going, they'll get sex?

    Gambling addiction is a psychological problem and advertising has nothing to do with it.

  14. ImaGnuber

    Effect?

    Have gambling establishments been over-run by short men? No? Then I guess the only people who took it seriously were the one complainant and the advert police.

    @Fraser:

    I would imagine that families and friends of anorexics get upset by ads for diet products. Should they be removed?

    As for there being any similarity to reporting a burglary to police - get a grip

  15. thomas k.
    Happy

    faulty reasoning

    In re "attracting the scantily-clad females", isn't ASA aware that most of us "height-challenged" males have been over-compensated in another area?

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