I'm unsure whether or not this is the right place for this discussion, but I've got some questions regarding the targeted advertising and how/why a gambling advertisement is being shown in the game.
I must preface this by saying I have both the "Targeted Advertising" and "Your Choice Regarding Our Marketing Campaigns" enabled as I feel it adds another level of realism to the game and that I don't mind the idea at all. However this instance brought me some questions in regard to the legality/ethics of the ad itself and what information the targeted advertisement used in order to show me this advertisement in the game.
As you can see in the screenshot, it's an online casino advertising their deposit bonus in Norwegian.
This might just be the result of some lazy filtering by whatever advertising agency SEGA/SI employs and that it sees I'm a norwegian male over 18 (which is information they gain through Steam and the game) and in return shows this gambling ad. But I still feel like this warrants some questioning.
I won't delve into the legality aspect of it too much, as I don't know which countries laws it would go under or how relevant it is. But in Norway, it's not allowed to advertise for any casinos other than the state regulated Norsk Tipping and its subsidiaries. As far as I'm aware, casino advertisement directed to norwegian customers isn't allowed either, but there are some loopholes and it is virtually impossible for them to recieve any repercussions, so I won't go into it any further.
However I do think it's worth to discuss the ethics of it. FM advertises itself as a PEGI 3 game and in order to have a Steam account you must atleast be 13. You also enter your date of birth when you first launch the game, in order to recieve age appropriate advertising, however anyone who was on the internet prior to turning 18 knows how well people adhere to such things. So even if SI are right in terms of the legal aspects, we all know that people under 18 will have gambling advertisements directed to them, just like I did. Not only children, but this could be triggering to gambling addicts.
We are all aware of how big of a role gambling has in todays football, every top team has a gambling shirt sponsor and gambling sponsors in their stadiums. I think most people can agree that it is financially benefitial to the teams, but it's a part of football most people would prefer to have removed. Much like how COVID was never implemented into the game, as the game was supposed to act as a break from real life football, I also think gambling sponsors (albeit a less detrimental) should be removed from the game for the same reason.
The potentially worst part of this whole ordeal and how the "Targeted Advertising" actually works and how it shows me gambling advertisements in the game. It might very well be that it was just by chance, but as a man who likes to gamble and has used the site in question before I found it puzzling (I also get the same exact add in my browser). According to the game, I "share my user data and behaviour information from your game with third parties to display targeted advertising". I presume the user data in question is the date of birth you enter when you first launch the game, but I'm curious as to what exactly the "behaviour information" is and what is gathered from where, especially considering this is the same ad I see in my day-to-day browsing. This might have to do with Norway being a small advertising market and that only a few select ads are shown, so I'm curious if people from bigger advertising markets have seen similair gambling ads in the game.
Sorry for a long post, but I felt like this is something that should be answered, even if it's just an error from the advertising agency or a decision from SI. Any thoughts or input would be greatly appreiciated.