The UK-facing online gambling affiliate industry is facing a fresh assault after the local advertising watchdog upheld complaints against four operators’ affiliate-created promotional content.

On Wednesday, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) upheld complaints against marketing content created by an affiliate working for 888 Holdings, Ladbrokes, Sky Betting & Gaming and Casumo.

The four operators were slammed for the same piece of advertorial, which appeared on 24hournews.co and casinohacks.co between March and June of this year. The advertorial, which the complainants felt “had the appearance of an editorial article,” detailed the travails of a man named ‘William’ who was £130k in debt due to his wife’s cancer-related medical bills.

Lo and behold, while taking a break in the hospital lobby to update friends and family about his wife’s condition, an admittedly depressed ‘William’ stumbled across ads for various gambling websites on his mobile, but almost ignored the sites until he noticed their various promotional offers, which he felt were “too hard to pass up.”