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Amsterdam’s new ban on public advertisements for meat and fossil fuel products makes me wonder whether we should be more ban-happy with ads in the UK. There are plenty I want rid of: “See it, say it, sorted”, obviously, which refuses to die, and those LNER ads featuring a hideously perky puppet treating train travel like an excuse for a party (pipe down, Eleanor). Also up against the wall when I’m in charge: overly matey ads for banks (don’t you dare call me “bestie” when you’re selling me an Isa); any catchy jingle that displaces the scraps of useful information still clinging on in my brain; and the whole wellness grift of snake oil powders and goo.
But if I could ban only one type of advertising, I’d go after gambling. It’s hard not to sound like a Victorian tub-thumping religious zealot when you rant about gambling ads, but my God, they’re grotesquely disingenuous and cynical, making out that high street slot shops and online gaming sites are all razzle-dazzle and sparkle; that it’s a bit of fun for cheeky chappies and gorgeous gals.
That star-studded ad with Danny Dyer, which seems to suggest that betting on your phone is like a glitzy trip to Vegas crossed with a Guy Ritchie movie, is particularly egregious – the celebs in it who took a Paddy Power payout should be ashamed. So should the companies who illegally targeted ads at problem gamblers – a high court judgment in 2025 revealed that one at-risk individual received 1,300 emails over two years.
Research shows “a direct association between exposure to advertising and gambling activity” – exactly what advertisers want, of course, but not what the public wants: polling data released in January found 70% of people want tougher regulation; 27% support an outright ban. Because we know that real-life gambling isn’t the brightly coloured, glamorous fun the ads suggest: slot shops cluster in areas of high deprivation whose residents can least afford to play, and people with gambling addictions can lose everything, even their lives. That should disqualify betting firms from billboard (or TV, or online) space; they’re definitely worse than burgers.
Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist