UK gambling operators have received rare praise from the local advertising watchdog for reducing the number of gambling promos on ‘kid-friendly’ websites.

Last Friday, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) released the latest report on its new program of occasionally ‘sweeping’ the interwebz for signs of ‘age-restricted’ advertising appearing in children’s media.

In the previous report this summer, the ASA’s search of 50 YouTube channels and kid-friendly sites found 159 incidents of age-restricted ads, of which nearly half involved gambling. The other verboten products included alcohol, e-cigarettes/tobacco, weight control products and food high in fat/salt/sugar (HFSS).

In the most recent report, the ASA scanned 49 websites and seven YouTube channels from July to September 2020, ultimately detecting 127 age-restricted ads posted by 44 different advertisers. Miracle of miracles, only five gambling ads from three operators were found on six sites and zero YouTube channels.