Gambling ad featuring porn star Bonnie Blue prompts call for crackdown
Lisa Nandy has been urged to censor “pornographic” gambling adverts on social media, after a video featuring the adult star, Bonnie Blue, was posted online.
Campaigners wrote to the culture secretary over the advert, which appeared on X in December and promotes the gambling business, Stake.
In the video, the porn star talks about having sex with “barely legal 18 year olds” in their freshman year at Nottingham University while the Stake logo appears across the screen.
Stake, headquartered in Australia, bills itself as “the world’s leading cryptocurrency casino and sportsbook”, allowing customers to bet with Bitcoin, Ethereum and other digital currencies. In the UK, it is best known as a sponsor of Everton FC.
In the letter to Ms Nandy, Will Prochaska, of the Coalition to End Gambling Ads, called on her to compel the Gambling Commission to act, accusing Stake of “using sexualised content involving pornographic actress Bonnie Blue to promote themselves to young people on social media”.
Bonnie Blue – real name Tia Billinger – is a rising star in the world of adult content who this month attempted to break the world record for the most amount of sex had in 12 hours. There is no suggestion of any wrongdoing on her part.
The ad was posted by an account claiming to be affiliated with Stake rather than an official account for the company, and has now been deleted. It is not clear whether Bonnie Blue was involved in its creation, or whether the account that posted it simply repurposed a video from elsewhere.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has said it has received complaints over other social media posts, in which the Stake logo appears next to clips of adult stars, sports clips and other viral videos.
Stake has been accused of working with affiliated accounts which repurpose viral content, adding its logo, to contravene rules around gambling advertising. However, its exact involvement with these social media accounts is not clear, and the company has issued no public statements on the videos despite mounting scrutiny.
A spokesman for the ASA said: “We are currently assessing these matters and whether there are grounds for further action.
“There appear to be some jurisdictional points that we have to consider and/or if there are elements that we might, where appropriate, refer to the Gambling Commission.”
Stake’s UK website, which does not offer crypto gambling, is run under license by an Isle of Man-based company, TGP Europe, through a so-called white label agreement.
Deals like this are frequently used by international gambling firms that want to launch in the UK without having to invest large sums in development and infrastructure.
However, they have proved controversial among critics and campaign groups who argue they allow opaque entities to do business in the UK without facing the kind of scrutiny British companies must contend with.
In the letter, Mr Prochaska said: “The system allows foreign owned gambling businesses such as Stake, to piggy back off of an existing licence holder’s permission to operate in Great Britain, but without any of the scrutiny that applying for their own licence would entail.”
TGP Europe previously fell foul of regulators in 2023, when it was given a £316,250 penalty for anti-money laundering and social responsibility failures by the Gambling Commission.
Neither Stake nor TGP Europe responded to requests for comment. The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) declined to comment.
A Gambling Commission spokesman said: “We are already investigating this video’s apparent links to a gambling operator.”
