This Ethical & Responsible Advertising Code defines a frame of reference for the creation of advertising campaigns and sales promotion activities in relation to lottery games.
It therefore constitutes the National Lottery’s commitment in this respect, with which it asks her partners to comply. These commitments relate to the design, creation and dissemination of the messages and campaigns that are intended to publicise, explain and promote the lottery games to adult consumers.
Table of Contents :
1. Generic Codes
All marketing communications must be managed in compliance with the law and the self-disciplinary codes and rules that govern marketing activity in general*.
Moreover, the National Lottery undertakes to adhere to the specific code of conduct for the Direct Marketing and Direct E-Marketing sectors and to obtain the prior consent of Direct E-Marketing recipients. This prior consent only has to be obtained in the context of electronic communications. This obligation does not apply to postal communications.
The National Lottery undertakes to invest the necessary means for guaranteeing a secure environment when use is made of information society services (the Internet, mobile phones, interactive television, and so on).
* See especially: “Consolidated Code on Advertising and Marketing Communication Practises of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC)”.
2. General Provisions
The advertising and promotion is designed to publicise the legal offer that lottery games constitute. The National Lottery must help to channel the desire to gamble towards a circuit that is both legal and honest.
The advertising for the lottery games must involve a responsible gambling policy, focusing on information for the players, a prevention of excessive gamgling and the protection of minors.
• The advertising must comply with the law.
• The advertising must be socially responsible.
• The advertising must not be denigrating.
• The advertising must communicate sufficient and correct information so that consumers can make their choices with full knowledge of the facts.
The National Lottery provides a great deal of playing pleasure by offering entertaining games. Pleasure, entertainment and dream are the fundamental values that are to be found in all the games that the National Lottery distributes.
But the National Lottery’s positive values must also be reflected through its social engagement.
Values
The National Lottery undertakes to respect the following three values in all its communications and in its advertising and promotional activities:
- ARTICLE 1 The values of respect for the individual and the moral values currently accepted by the majority of the public.
- ARTICLE 2 The values of the National Lottery, represented by the subjects that the National Lottery refuses to approach: poverty and destitution, misfortune, any form of segregation, xenophobia, discrimination and ostracism.
- ARTICLE 3 The positive values of the National Lottery’s products: dream, suspense, entertainment and accessibility.
Advertisements, communications and promotional activities in relation to National Lottery’s lottery games may not:
ARTICLE I
Discredit the National Lottery’s integrity or credibility;
ARTICLE II.
Exaggerate the chances of winning;
ARTICLE III.
Create or maintain addiction to gambling, nor incite abusive play;
ARTICLE IV.
Mention data relating to winnings or the chances of winning that are not verifiable or in conformity with the planned prizes of the game concerned;
ARTICLE V.
Suggest that the fact of winning depends on factors other than chance, nor that a knowledge of the game can influence it;
ARTICLE VI.
Sing the praises of people who buy lottery games nor criticise those who don’t. It is therefore a question of not exerting any dishonest influence on the behaviour of the player or of the non-player that would generate a feeling of the latter’s exclusion or banishment;
ARTICLE VII.
Create messages that suggest in the players’ minds that all participants will win large sums of money;
ARTICLE VIII.
Insinuate that gambling is a solution to financial or personal problems;
ARTICLE IX.
Insinuate that gambling constitutes an alternative to work and saving;
ARTICLE X.
Imply that gambling is a means for paying invoices and debts;
ARTICLE XI.
Encourage gambling to an extent that could endanger the consumers’ professional situations or their family and social relations;
ARTICLE XII.
Encourage discrimination based on race, nationality, religion, gender or age;
ARTICLE XIII.
Send messages playing on the vulnerability of people with financial difficulties or exploiting their financial problems;
ARTICLE XIV.
Encourage minors to gamble or make minors believe that they can gamble, nor target minors or put forward advertisements with people who are or appear to be minors playing a lottery game;
ARTICLE XV.
Be disseminated in publications or media recognised as being only for minors;
ARTICLE XVI.
Portray:
- Situations where people are playing a lottery game and, simultaneously drinking alcohol and/or smoking,
- Illegal forms of gambling, betting, lottery or competition;
ARTICLE XVII.
Reveal the name, address or other data of the winners and their families (including their photograph or any other visual recording) without the permission in writing of the winners concerned. The subject of their permission must be clearly specified in the written agreement and the winners must moreover have the possibility of withdrawing it. Such permission withdrawal must be respected insofar as it is reasonably achievable;
ARTICLE XVIII.
Create an impression that the subsidising of good causes constitutes an alternative to private donations whereas they are in fact complementary.
a. Field of Application
This sectoral code applies to all companies that organise lottery games on the territory of Belgium. The following are excluded from the field of application: tombolas, games of chance, sports betting and horse-race betting.
b. Implementation
This sectoral code applies to all companies organising lottery games, and more particularly to the following people and companies.
- Internally: to any person involved in the process of developing an advertising and/or promotional campaign project.
- Externally: to all service providers mandated by the National Lottery or, in the context of the National Lottery’s sponsorships and subsidies, to all the recipients thereof, and to its suppliers of goods and services, in order to conceive, develop and create messages and activities of an advertising and/or promotional nature (as a priority, advertising agencies, sales promotion agencies and production companies), and in order to conceive the above-line and below-line campaigns and to buy the corresponding space (in particular, media agencies and advertising authorities).
The National Lottery reserves the right to include a clause relating to its adherence to this Ethical & Responsible Advertising Code in all its sponsorship contracts. The National Lottery would then be able to be instantaneously released from any contract in which the other party would not have complied with this Ethical & Responsible Advertising Code to which the National Lottery adheres.
Similarly, in the context of subsidies, any grant will be conditional upon adherence to this Ethical & Responsible Advertising Code.
This Code has been approved by the Advertising Council’s Board of Directors. This therefore enables the Advertising Ethics Jury (JEP) to monitor the proper application of this Code in accordance with its regulations.
This Code will also be subsequently approved by the National Lottery’s Management Committee, Board of Directors and Responsible Gambling Committee.
The Code will be evaluated and/or altered at the end of a two-year period starting from 30 March 2007 or as soon as new players arrive in the market.
After approval by the Advertising Council’s Board of Directors, this Code will be published on the JEP’s website (www.jepbelgium.be) and the Advertising Council will ask its member associations to inform their own members thereof.
Lottery Games
All operations offered to the public and intended for making a profit by way of chance are deemed to be lotteries.
A lottery game is a money game seeking to distribute prizes to winners randomly selected from among players who have paid an initial ante.
Drawing Games
Lottery games where prizes are allocated according to the results of drawing lots.
Jeux Scratch Games
Scratch games where prizes are exclusively allocated by an indication on the card according to a distribution determined by chance without drawing lots. This indication is hidden beneath an opaque layer that has to be scratched off.
Prizes Plan
Share-out of the wins determined for each game.
Dépendance Gambling Addiction
People who devote themselves to money games can become strongly addicted to them. This psychopathology (addiction) is called “pathological gambling”. Gambling becomes a disease or an addiction resulting in an uncontrollable impulse to bet money. Addiction is characterised by a state of imperative need to practise an activity, or to consume a substance, and by the need to increase the frequency or the amount of it in order to maintain its effect and to avoid withdrawal symptoms (discomfort, anguish).