William Hill has been told to remove an advertisement for misleading language around payments by the ASA.

www.williamhill.com, featured an advert heading stating “New Customer Offer. Get £60 From A Minimum £10 Bet” followed by a “Join Here” button. Small print under the button included text stating “Payment methods & country restrictions apply. Full T&C’s apply”. The full terms and conditions were listed in small print further down the page and included text stating “This promotion is not available to new accounts where funds are paid into by Apple Pay”.

The complainant who believed that the restriction on the use of Apple Pay was a significant condition of the promotion that had been omitted and was not sufficiently prominent in the ad, and challenged whether the ads were misleading.

The ASA considered that the fact that certain payment options, including Apple Pay, were excluded from the offer, meaning new customers using that payment method would not receive the £60 welcome bonus, was a significant condition likely to affect a consumer’s understanding about how to participate in the promotion. The omission of that information was likely to mislead.

The ads must not appear again in the form complained of. The ASA told WHG (International) Ltd t/a William Hill Online to ensure that their future marketing communications referring to promotions included all significant conditions, where the omission of those conditions, or their positioning in an insufficiently prominent place, was likely to mislead.