The past few years, here in Norway, at least 30% of all TV advertisements are for casino websites.
When I counted myself, I came to 70% but that was just one day, just one channel.
It's not uncommon for one commercial break to show *only* casino advertisements, one after the other.
The main problem with this, is that gambling is illegal in Norway. Casinos are illegal. Advertising FOR casinos is illegal.
How can something illegal occupy a majority of its allocated time? Well, because they use a glaring loophole. It's an "elephant in the room", everybody knows, people, politicians, cops, they all know: They are technically not advertising FOR gambling - but FOR a website. "Come to this website!"
They are careful about how they express themselves, in order to keep the loophole, but at the same time, they are as cynical as possible. I suspect these websites rarely last long, so their mission becomes to gather up compulsive gamblers as quickly as possible. One recent ad pointed out that "loyalty pays off - play daily!"
DAILY
Other ads try to be more edgy, and will challenge people, by telling them outright that their odds of winning are next to nul. Honest, but still callous, because they intend this to draw even more compulsive gamblers to their site.
Since they're allready breaking the law, they will add no redeeming features, such as "gamble responsibly" or adding a discrete help-phone-number or any such. These features existed in a very few ads, in the beginning, but are no longer part of any of the ads because they frankly don't need or want to.
In Spain I didn't see any of this, at all... so it seems evident that this isn't a global trend. I DO know the same happens in Sweden, because just a moment ago I wanted to Google the issue (where I found Swedish and Danish comments on the same thing), only to have the first results be websites dedicated to promoting advertisements for gambling websites. Whenever I think "it can't be possible"... :I
Personally, I find all of this reprehensible. It's been going on for years, and nobody seems to react. Nobody tries to stop it, nobody debates it on tv, nobody cares - and this is on par with advertising alcohol or cigarettes or hard drugs - all of which is firmly banned on Norwegian TV - as well as many other countries.
When I counted myself, I came to 70% but that was just one day, just one channel.
It's not uncommon for one commercial break to show *only* casino advertisements, one after the other.
The main problem with this, is that gambling is illegal in Norway. Casinos are illegal. Advertising FOR casinos is illegal.
How can something illegal occupy a majority of its allocated time? Well, because they use a glaring loophole. It's an "elephant in the room", everybody knows, people, politicians, cops, they all know: They are technically not advertising FOR gambling - but FOR a website. "Come to this website!"
They are careful about how they express themselves, in order to keep the loophole, but at the same time, they are as cynical as possible. I suspect these websites rarely last long, so their mission becomes to gather up compulsive gamblers as quickly as possible. One recent ad pointed out that "loyalty pays off - play daily!"
DAILY
Other ads try to be more edgy, and will challenge people, by telling them outright that their odds of winning are next to nul. Honest, but still callous, because they intend this to draw even more compulsive gamblers to their site.
Since they're allready breaking the law, they will add no redeeming features, such as "gamble responsibly" or adding a discrete help-phone-number or any such. These features existed in a very few ads, in the beginning, but are no longer part of any of the ads because they frankly don't need or want to.
In Spain I didn't see any of this, at all... so it seems evident that this isn't a global trend. I DO know the same happens in Sweden, because just a moment ago I wanted to Google the issue (where I found Swedish and Danish comments on the same thing), only to have the first results be websites dedicated to promoting advertisements for gambling websites. Whenever I think "it can't be possible"... :I
Personally, I find all of this reprehensible. It's been going on for years, and nobody seems to react. Nobody tries to stop it, nobody debates it on tv, nobody cares - and this is on par with advertising alcohol or cigarettes or hard drugs - all of which is firmly banned on Norwegian TV - as well as many other countries.
