Those naughty larrikins over at Sportsbet have created more furore with its latest Aussie ad that uses disgraced Olympic drug cheat, Ben Johnson, to spruik the online betting agency's new online android betting app.
The mobile betting app which he's promoting in the add "tested positive for speed and power", according to the former runner himself. Johnson is introduced in the advertisement as someone who "really knows his stuff" along with an asterisk next to his 1988 100m gold medal accomplishment.
Well, you're probably already getting the picture, but, lest we forget, Ben Johnson was stripped of his 100 metres gold medal, having tested positive for a banned performance-enhancing steroid at the Seoul Olympics in 1988.
Sportsbet commented on the wave of criticism it has been facing since the official release of the TV ad, saying it had no intentions to pull the ad. "This advertising campaign belittles the achievements of clean athletes and denigrates those who work to protect clean sport across the world". While it underlined that the company in no way endorses or condones the use of performance enhancing drugs, it made "no apologies for injecting some humour into advertising".
The company, however, remains adamant in its defence of the commercial and will not pull the ad.
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The federal executive government of Australia, the Turnbull Government, has recently started to impose tighter regulatory rules on web-based sports betting.
The proliferation of gambling advertising at sport venues and on television has raised alarm bells in Australia, where almost A$23 billion ($17.06 billion) was lost in all forms of legal wagering in the 2014-15 financial year, up almost eight percent on the previous year, according to government statistics.
Xenophon called the campaign wrong on many levels.
In a statement, the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority said that the Sportsbet ad "makes light of the use of performance enhancing drugs in sport and sends the completely wrong message that the use of drugs in sport is normal". After working there for a couple of years and writing on various topics, he found his interest for the gambling industry.
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