Sportsbet ordered to pull Ben Johnson ‘juiced up’ TV advert

Australian online sports betting operator Sportsbet has been told to stop running its controversial television commercial featuring disgraced Olympic sprinter Ben Johnson.

On Monday, Australia’s Advertising Standards Bureau issued a ruling regarding the Sportsbet advert, which featured Johnson promoting the betting operator’s “juiced up” Android app, playing on Johnson’s use of anabolic steroids that led to him being stripped of his 1988 Olympic gold medal in the 100m sprint event.

While Sportsbet had already pulled the ad from live sports broadcasts following complaints by anti-doping agencies and media-hungry politicians, the Board ordered the company to pull the ad from all television and social media channels based on its view that the ad was “contrary to prevailing community standards on health and safety.”

Sportsbet had attempted to argue that the ad’s multiple references to athletes deriving benefits from performance enhancing drugs (PED) were “clearly comical in nature,” but the Board nonetheless determined that the ad had breached section 2.6 of the advertising Code.