PlayOJO Wins at UK Social Media Awards

The Safe Bets Campaign at PlayOJO

The UK Social Media Awards placed PlayOJO at the top for their 3-minute-long promotional video that featured former Love Island star, Olivia Bowen. The presentation of the video is somewhat similar to 1970s and 80s safe sex educational films. In the promo, Olivia is seen in a white lab coat and talks about the benefits of safer gambling with some tips.

The PlayOJO campaign video won first place thanks to its risqué yet successful comparisons between safer sex and safe gambling. The Love Island star delivered the presentation with humour where she made several references to safe sex innuendos such as how the deposit limit tool acts as a safe barrier when playing. When talking about this specific mechanic, Olivia is seen holding a pack of PlayOJO branded condoms.

Next up, Olivia goes on to talk about the Safe Mate feature at PlayOJO. The feature gives players an analytical view on how much they tend to play during a session, how much a player is betting, a comparison with other members and gives personalized tips on how to enjoy even safer betting at PlayOJO. Although the function is very useful, the promotional video shows Safe Mate as a blow-up doll.

The last Safe Bets function that the Love Island star talks about is the Take a Break mechanic. This allows players to self-exclude themselves from a casino for a specified period of time. When presenting it, Olivia is seen holding a chastity belt and goes on to talk about how a player can choose to be locked out for 24 hours or longer.

PlayOJO won the award after a leading panel of marketing experts judged the operator as having the most creative and innovative social media campaign. The judging process consists of two separate stages, the first which includes a pre-scoring to determine shortlists and the second phase where judges meet and discuss entries and evaluate them in detail.

Peter Bennett, the CMO at PlayOJO said this after the operator won the award:

“It is an absolute privilege to once again be recognised by the UK Social Media awards. Having picked up two awards at last year’s event, we are proud to have been able to continue our great work in engaging our audience via social media.

“In a continuing theme, this year’s campaign was also focused on responsible and safer gaming, something we, as one of the UK’s top online casino and bingo operators, are striving to lead the pack on. Player safety is at the forefront of everything we do as a business and is an important part of our advertising and social media strategy.

“I’d also like to take this opportunity to thank not just the amazing team and agency Cubaka, but also the judges for recognising what we set out to achieve with our Safe Bets campaign.”

The acclaim comes after PlayOJO also won the 2021 Best Use of Instagram and Best Use of Social Media award in last year’s Social Media Awards. In addition, PlayOJO received recognition in the SoundOut Index event in 2021 for having one of the most recognized sonic logos in the UK.

About PlayOJO Casino

PlayOJO was launched in 2017 and it has built a reputation for transparency and honesty. The online gambling site is mobile friendly and delivers players games from a wide range of top developers that includes the likes of Microgaming, NetEnt, Yggdrasil Gaming and many more.

At PlayOJO, players can enjoy a variety of slots, table games, live casino, jackpots and game shows. The operator has over 500 games available and they can be played in English, German, Suomi, Norsk and French.

PlayOJO operates using licenses from the United Kingdom Gambling Commission and the Malta Gaming Authority. Those two licenses are the most prestigious in the industry and allow the casino to operate in several European countries and jurisdictions.

The operator had one of the steepest rises from launch to becoming an established online casino. Perhaps that is because of their ‘no bullshit’ policy to establish themselves as one of the most transparent casinos in the iGaming industry.

In 2017, the freshly launched casino won the Rising Star acclaim from EGR Operator Awards. Moreover, PlayOJO won iGaming Awards Casino of the Year and Meister Awards Casino of the Year that year as well.

What are Safe Bets at PlayOJO?

The promotional campaign mentioned a variety of tips that players could use to gamble in a safer way. However, to appeal more to social media viewers, the campaign made use of sexual innuendos about the safe bets feature found at the casino and got a former Love Island star in Olivia Bowen to present it as if it was a sex ed class from the 1970s or 80s. The facts about Safe Bets at PlayOJO still remain an important feature that the casino has to offer.

Those included are the:

• Take a Break
• Safe Mate
• Set your own Limits

PlayOJO Safe Bets includes a time out feature, which is called Take a Break. It allows players to self-exclude themselves from the casino for a minimum of 24 hours up to 6 weeks. The cooling off time may be useful for players that need a break from the casino and to spend some time away from gambling.

In addition, there is also the Safe Mate, which actually does a lot more work than the blow-up doll suggests in the promo video. The Safe Mate acts as a 24/7 personal assistant and tracks how much money and time a player spends at the casino. Furthermore, the Safe Mate also provides personalized tips to members to monitor and track their spendings in a better and safer way.

At PlayOJO, it is possible to set your own limits to adjust the amount that you want to deposit each day, week and month. It is possible to have up to 3 limits active at once. In doing so, the player is able to gamble in a safer way so that they do not play with cash that they cannot afford to lose.

PlayOJO also gives players the chance to win free personalized PlayOJO condoms by taking the Safe Bets test. The test is five easy questions ensuring that most players will be winners. The condoms have inside jokes, such as:

• Just the Tip: Safe Mate gives you personal tips for safer play
• At it like a Rabbit? Set reminders to take regular breaks
• Wrap it Up: Set deposit limits before getting carried away

Other Famous Safer Gambling Campaigns from Around the World

In the United States, a similar campaign was launched by online bookies DraftKings, which focuses on responsible gambling. In September, the US bookmaker released two commercials for their responsible gambling campaign, “Practice Safe Bets”. The commercials featured popular sports personalities, The Miz – a WWE wrestler – and legendary skateboarder Tony Hawks.

The aim of these campaigns is to help sports fans understand the importance of responsible gambling. Furthermore, they emphasise the benefits of playing at DraftKings, highlighting the features offered by DraftKings, such as betting limits, and tools integrated into the DraftKings app.

DraftKings will promote the campaign through radio and TV adverts across the country. Their social media and digital channels will ensure that the responsible gambling message reaches target audiences. In addition, the inclusion of the personalities is set to reinforce the strength of the message. Stephanie Sherman, the CMO at DraftKings, said:

"We chose The Miz and Tony Hawk for the Practice Safe Bets campaign because of their extensive fan bases and because their personalities will break through the noise to reinforce why using responsible gaming tools is so important."

Gamstop Launches Self-Exclusion Campaign

Gamstop are a gambling self-exclusion service that also work hard to boost awareness of safer gambling tools such as self-exclusion. The company launched the UK’s first ever self-exclusion campaign and has partnered with several professional sports associations and clubs. That includes the likes of Crystal Palace FC, the Professional Players Federation and the Professional Cricket Association. Furthermore, Luton Town FC, Sutton United, Walsall FC and Oldham Athletic are among the bodies that have partnered with the campaign.

Gamstop has reached 2.6 million people on social media with the campaign that uses the hashtag #TakeBackControl2022. The ambition of the company is to raise awareness before the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, which begins on the 20th of November.

Fiona Palmer, the CEO of Gamstop, released a statement:

“We are very grateful to all our partners who took part with us on social media to support the campaign, using the #TakeBackControl2022 hashtag,”

“By sharing information about GAMSTOP with their followers they have helped us to educate new audiences about self-exclusion and where people can get help if they need it.”

In July, Gamstop announced that it had reached 300,000 self-exclusions from former punters ever since the company was launched in 2018.