Cbet employee fined over advertising breach in Lithuania

The employee in question was ruled to have ordered prohibited advertising in November of last year, with the ads featuring more content than is permitted in the country.

Since 1 November 2019, gambling advertising in Lithuania has been limited to only showing the name, trademarks and types of gambling an operator can offer. It is forbidden to feature any additional written, visual or audio content in ads.

However, the court found that the Cbet adverts featured additional content when they were shown on the TV3, Lietuvos Ryto TV and BTV television channels, including the image of actor Mindaugas Papinigis and a number of unregistered trademarks.

In its ruling, the court said the agreement between the operator and advertisers included a clause to only promote the operator’s brand, but this did not happen in the final advert.

The court also noted that the country’s Gambling Supervisory Authority had advised all licensed operators of the changes when they came into effect last year and, as such, staff should have been aware of the rule breach.

In addition, the court said that the decision is not open to appeal.

The ruling comes after a new survey commissioned by the Gambling Supervisory Authority found that the majority of Lithuanians support a ban on advertising gambling products, despite most saying they had not seen ads recently.

The survey of 1,001 adults found that in total, 12% of respondents said they gambled – excluding playing lotteries – in the past year, with men aged 29 or under the most likely group to gamble.