Going Too Far?

How would you feel if a child's hero was used to promote cigarettes? Or if Fred Flintstone begin appearing in ads for Budweiser? It would probably enrage a lot of parents and cause a PR nightmare for the companies that thought it would be OK to used childhood heroes to sell their adult products.

And yet that's what so many gaming suppliers are doing. We've all seen new slot machines over the years that include themes which could easily appeal to children. Bally for example has Betty Boop, Blondie, Popeye, Felix the Cat and many others. And WMS offers Monopoly, Pac Man, Men in Black and others too. While some would argue that this marketing attracts children to gambling, I've always disagreed as I figured those games were only available to people inside casinos and since the legal age to hang out in a casino is 21, 99.999% of the kids in this country would never see the games.

But now the California Lottery has possibly gone too far. On May 9th, they announced that they're going to offer a Star Wars lottery game. (Source) This game will include a series of 6 collector coins each with a different character from the movie series as well as Star Wars themed tickets.

Doesn't anyone else think this is crossing the line? Lotteries are a form of gambling which, unlike casino games, are advertised on TV and openly displayed inside stores where adults and children shop. Plus many of the California Lottery ticket locations sell tickets from a vending machine which doesn't do anything to confirm the buyer is of legal age.

I have no problem with movies selling out to various products for advertising and promotion. But I think that this has gone too far and I can't help but wonder if Bacardi were to use cartoon heroes in their ads, would parents rally against them?