Winning hand: poker is ruled a sport … but advert is banned

wanbet-bc518

Stone-faced gamblers playing cards in rooms thick with cigar smoke might not be everyone's idea of a sporting life.

But, according to advertising watchdogs, poker can justly be described as a sport.

Regulators ruled yesterday that the game meets the definition of a sport because of the mental abilities required.
advertisement

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) refused to uphold a complaint about an advert for an online poker company which described it as a sport and showed a top player in hockey gear.

However, it did ban the advert because its claim that poker was a game of "courage, conviction and confidence" suggested qualities which would make gambling sound attractive.

The decision will open up new arguments about just what constitutes a sport and what is a game.

An advert for one website, PokerStars.com, showed a picture of world poker champion Daniel Negreanu wielding a hockey stick. A caption read: "Play mind games. Poker is a sport of courage, conviction and confidence."

It was ordered not to use the wording again as it suggested qualities which young men would find attractive and could even be enhanced by gambling.

However, the site was allowed to continue to describe poker as a sport, despite objections, after successfully claiming it used the same mental abilities needed in physical sports.

The ASA said: "Courage, conviction and confidence were attributes that demonstrated mental toughness or resilience and would be seen as admirable qualities by the target audience of 21 to 44-year-old men.

"We also considered that the claim implied not only that those qualities were needed in order to play poker, but also that success at poker would enhance those qualities."

Complaints that the giant poster would appeal to children with the description of poker as a sport were dismissed by the ASA.

The website argued: "Poker is a game of intelligence, tactics, skill, judgment and nerve. Along with games such as chess and bridge, poker is considered to be a mind sport'.

"Poker is distinct from gambling in general, and in particular from repetitive and mechanical forms of gambling, such as roulette, that allowed very little human input into the outcome.

"The mental abilities that contribute to success at poker are also highest among the mental abilities that contribute to physical sporting success."

The poster was quoting champion Mr Negreanu's own opinion that success in the game of bluff required "courage, conviction and confidence", the site argued in its submission to the ASA.

But it did not claim that playing poker would give someone these qualities or enhance them.

The ASA said "the definition of sport' as a game, pastime or recreational activity was a definition that could be applied to poker", but added: "Because of the reference to courage, conviction and confidence, we concluded the ad breached the code. It must not appear again in its current form."