With so much competition, betting companies need to be creative to get us to pay any attention to their television ads.
But sometimes, creativity turns to plain weird, and the result are often hilarious but likely not suitable for family viewing. Take our first offering from Betsafe, a brand under Betsson, which wanted to portray that you can “win on almost anything”.
To do so, it created an ad of two gentlemen jostling to see who could be crapped on – in the mouth, no less – by a seagull first.
Seagull shit does not normally sell. But sex does. Full Tilt Poker decided to use the famously straight poker face of its ambassador, poker legend Phil Ivey. He comes home early to find Mrs Ivey up to no good in the bedroom.
If sex is usually a taboo subject in TV ads, you’d think abusing dwarfs would be, too. But Intercasino, which claimed to be the world’s first online casino back in 1996, did just that.
First, it put three dwarfs in a church bell tower and got them tugging on the bell ropes – then all get swept upwards and return back to earth as three cherries. It’s a dwarf slot machine. Obviously.
If that wasn’t weird enough, Intercasino returned with a second ad featuring its three mini actors. This time, to plug blackjack.
Meanwhile, over in Canada in 2004, Pro Line sports betting came up with this jaunty ad that shows what happens when you accidentally tip muscle relaxant into the football team’s drink.
We’re not sure many of these would pass through the UK TV or gambling regulators these days!
