The Advertising Standard Authority (ASA), an independent regulator for advertising across all media in the UK, has banned the ‘Complaints line’ advert aired by Paddy Power. This is after receiving complaints that the advert contained misleading information.

The advert, featuring comedian Kayvan Novak, promoted Paddy Power’s free bet on all second places at the Cheltenham 2016. It further provided that the offer was available and open to all customers.

ASA concluded that the advert was misleading since the bookmaker had actually barred some customers from participating in the promotion thus contravening the advert’s impression that the promotion was open to all customers, this was after reviewing the terms of the promotion. Paddy Power came to its defense by claiming that potential abuse of the bonus is what necessitated the barring of some of its customer base from participating in the promotions.

The Terms and Conditions, ‘T&C apply’ caution placed on the advert by Paddy Power was found to be insufficient, this is because any customer, inclusive of those that were barred would presume that the ad was open to everyone and thus take up the promotion, whereas that was not the case. Thus as a result of Paddy Power implying that the promotion was open to everyone the advert was banned due to the misleading information.

Unlike in the previous years, UK bookmakers have not been lucky in 2015 with its ambition of becoming the best political indicator. This is because the betting markets have not been able to predict correctly a political outcome for the second time this year. Could it be that trends have changed?

During the Greek’s referendum held on Sunday last week, UK bookmakers favored a YES verdict. On the other hand, Paddy Power who offered 2/7 with confidence for a Greek Yes, declared its ‘five figures’ payment four days earlier as the UK bookmaker pulled out of its political market.Even so, the bookmaker’s early pay out of five figures was shattered by an uneven 61% win of Greek NO vote in the Sunday’s referendum.

It is with no doubt that Paddy Power testimonial sent to Bloomberg.com, a financial news source after wrong prediction would read: “My Bad.”

The Irish bookmaker claims to have been overexcited in paying out and that after Paddy Power called the Greek referendum wrongly with a lot of confidence, they are feeling like burying their heads under the sand this morning.

Generally, the Greek’s referendum outcome is a clear representation of another failure of political forecasting by bookmakers.

Another example is in April/May during the UK General Election, the bookmakers had also predicted a win for Labour-SNP hung parliament.

Besides that, during the Scottish independence referendum that happened in September 2014, UK bookmakers had been completely off the mark with the results.

All the same, bookmakers should not lose hope and take encouragement from research firms and political polling, which are ever criticized for failing to provide adequate forecasting data and calling the Greek referendum correctly but still keeps going. After all, that is what makes betting interesting.

This is a piece that will take you through some of the humble beginnings of online betting from Antigua to the current state and level of its sophistication. During these times, insane stunts from PR were taken and royal baby betting, as well as, endorsements in the industry happened often.

This online betting industry is worth in excess of $1 billion according to Statista which is a sum equal to the GDP of Netherlands.

A Journey on Online Betting

In 1994, Antigua and Barbuda approved of free Trade and Processing Zone Act which allowed offshore licences for online betting providers.

1996 saw intertops.com become the first sports book where a Finish puncture known as Jukka Honkavaara made the first wager and this was on a match between Tottenham Hotspurs and Hereford United. In this same year, The United States of America set a record in making wagers worth $60 Million on online gaming and betting platforms.

Activities and Growth of the Industry

It was in 1998 when Senator Jon Kyl brought to the floor and Internet Gaming Prohibition Act but the bill was not successful. The House of Representatives did not pass this bill in 2000 when it was presented again. It was in this same year when William Hill was launched as the first UK company offering online betting services. At this same period, a report was published by Frost & Sullivan and indicated that online gambling revenues made a top of $830 million.

As online betting was in its journey to grow; there was this doomsday prediction in 2000 where bookmarkers provided odds of 500-1 and the bet was that all real-world betting shops will comes to a close in 10 years. At this time, Europe saw another betting online store come to existence; Ladbrokes which was established by The Hilton Group. Another UK betting exchange by the name Betfair came to existence and they saw 36 bets on the first day. The company had a great time in their operations and in 2013, they registered an income of £70 million.

I would say that this evolution for online betting has come a long way and steadily. 2003 was when the first mobile betting platform was brought to action by sporting Index. This was the first UK mobile betting application. This same year reports were released by ORC International indicating that online betting had grown by 46% and offline betting from betting shops had gone up by 46%.

2004 saw the online betting fray joined by PaddyPower Sport.

2006 saw the USA ban betting after passing the UIGEA. This made it illegal for banks and companies offering credit to process any financial transaction related to betting sites. This saw a host of sites withdrawing from the market.

Graham Calvert lost £2 million at William Hill Casino in 2008 and sued them for this but he lose the lawsuit.

Technological advancements

Even though the US market was still unregulated, online sports betting wagers came to $50 billion in 2009.

2010 saw more celebrity endorsements after Ray Winstone “Sexy Beast” became the voice of bet365 advert campaign as he offered advice on live and in play odds.

From Statista betting it was found that the online sports betting market was worth $74 billion. This was in 2012. In 2013, Jason Neubauer launched YouBetMe and this was the first special networking betting application and it made it possible for members to bet against each other and not bookmarkers. This was the same year were match fixing madness came to play. Europol suspected the fixing o 380 European football matches and the illegal betting market that was fuelled by Asian crime syndicates which was estimated to be worth £306 billion.

2014 was when bitcoin came to play as a means of exchange and BetVIP was the first licensed bitcoin only sports book and launched just before the World Cup. SoftSwiss which was the Bitcoin Software company claimed that $10 million was the worth of wagers made each month.

2015 was when 11.1 million searches were made every month on Google for the term bet365 which was more than the 9 million searches Nike gets. At this point in time, online betting brings a contribution of $74 to $100 billion in the sports betting industry which is worth between $700 and $1,000 billion which is the same case with the GDP of Netherlands.