Commission agrees £691,000 regulatory settlement with MrQ
20th September 2023 | By Zak Thomas-Akoo
20th September 2023
The GB Gambling Commission agreed a £690,947 (€798,643/ $853,793) regulatory settlement with MrQ operator Lindar Media for anti-money laundering (AML) and social responsibility breaches.
The Commission began its regulatory review of MrQ after it made a compliance assessment in September 2022.
The review found failings in the online bingo and igaming operator’s processes for stopping money laundering and protecting people from being harmed by gambling.
It also found that Lindar Media had breached several of its Licence Conditions and Codes of Practice (LCCP). These ranged from AML to social responsibility failings.
The Commission said that, based on these failures and considering the operator’s actions since the assessment, it had agreed a £690,947 regulatory settlement with Lindar Media. This money will be directed to social responsible causes.
Findings of the compliance assessment
The GC outlined the specific failings it had found in Lindar Media’s compliance assessment. These included weaknesses in its implementation of AML policies, procedures and controls.
The regulator also discovered shortcomings in its responsible gambling policies, procedures, controls and practices. It highlighted failures that extended to its reporting as to when key events took place.
Other deficiencies included Lindar’s head of regulatory compliance taking additional management posts without Commission approval.
The operator also did not advertise its products in a socially responsible way. Finally, it failed to make its required research, prevention and treatment contributions to an organisation supporting those harmed by gambling.
“You win some, you lose some”
Responding to the regulatory settlement, Lindar Media said that the breaches happened during a time of growth for the business and that safer gambling policies had been improved since the time of the failures.
“My focus since 2022 has been centred around maturing the day-to-day operations through the development of the senior leadership team,” said Lindar Media chief executive Savvas Fellas.
“We’ve implemented scalable processes that provide consistency as we grow and built technology-driven models that underpin compliance and safer gambling promises to our players; all of which are aligned with our mission of offering progressive, value entertainment – with delight and transparency,” he added.
Money laundering and terrorist financing failures
Licence condition 12.1.1(1) says licence holders must assess their money laundering and terrorist financing (ML and TF) risk.
The Commission said MrQ failed to have an appropriate assessment for these risks. This was because it did not assess risk relating to customers, their means of payment, or additional inherent and emerging risks.
The ML and TF assessment also did not address key risk factors. These include customers associating with higher risk countries, along with a disproportionate spend relative to their wealth and business arrangements taking place in unusual circumstances.
Other risks not accounted for related to a customer being the beneficiary of a life insurance policy as well as when a customer is a foreign national applying for residence in return for transfers of capital.
The Commission also said Lindar breached licence condition 12.1.1(2) which outlines the operator’s responsibility for putting in place ML and TF controls.
Lindar failed to have appropriate measures in place. This included the company’s practice of automatically assigning a “low” level of ML risk to new customers.
The Commission said that, at this point, there would be not enough information to give them a rating. It assessed there was an over-reliance on financial triggers to identify and maintain ML risks.
The Commission also noted that financial thresholds for ML were too high, thereby allowing customers to deposit and lose more than £10,000. The regulator said this “did not appear to be sufficiently risk-based”.
MrQ’s social responsibility breaches
MrQ’s licence condition 15.2.1(4) makes clear licensees must notify the Commission within five working days after a key event takes place.
The operator did not inform the Commission promptly when its head of regulatory compliance left the position in June 2022. As such, the regulator found that the business was in breach of the licence condition between 20 June and September 2022.
The online bingo business also failed to comply with paragraphs 1a, 1b and 2 of the Social Responsibility Codes of Practice 3.4.1 (Customer Interaction).
These rules outline how licensees must interact with customers in a manner that minimise the risk of customers experiencing harms associated with gambling.
Lindar Media failed to identify customers at risk of experiencing gambling harms. Its financial and safer gambling triggers “were not always effective”, especially when dealing with customers depositing at a high velocity.
Disproportionate spend relative to personal circumstances was not considered until large amounts of money had been lost. When MrQ did consider personal circumstances, it did so using County Court judgements and bankruptcy data which was not always effective.
MrQ’s advertising failures
The Commission criticised the company for allowing its agents to use cartoon imagery to advertise the business. This is because of its appeal to children.
Surely such association is much more damaging to the sport’s image, and hence its future, than a handful of top players opting out of a rather minor event in favour of an unstreamed exhibition in China, earning some money whilst sparing themselves a tiring back and forth trip across several time zones…
Any player making two maximum breaks during this season’s Triple Crown Series will be rewarded with a massive £147,000 bonus.
This new initiative applies to the 2023 MrQ UK Championship, the 2024 Masters and the 2024 Cazoo World Championship. A player who makes two maximums (either a 147 or 155) in either the qualifying rounds or the final stages of those three tournaments will earn the huge bonus.
WST Chairman Steve Dawson said: “There is nothing quite as exhilarating in snooker as a maximum break, those moments bring us to the edge of our seats. And we’re making that achievement all the more special this season during our Triple Crown events.
“We’d love to see at least one player make a 147 at the MrQ UK Championship which would give them two more tournaments to chase the bonus. Last season we saw maximums from Kyren Wilson and Mark Selby at the Crucible – imagine the thrill if there was an extra £147,000 on the line!
“The skill level in snooker now is higher than ever and we expect this new prize will give the players extra motivation to go for maximum breaks.”
The bonus would be awarded in addition to the high break prizes for the individual events.
Up to three players could win this bonus, for example if three different players each made two 147s then they would each win £147,000. Or if one player made six maximums then he would bank £441,000!
The counting events are:
MrQ UK Championship. November 18-23 (qualifying rounds) and November 25 to December 3 The Masters. January 7-14. Cazoo World Championship. April 8-17 (qualifying rounds) and April 20 to May 6.
Looks great he? Well the snooker.org team had a good look at the stats. In the history of the game so far, a player having 2 maximum breaks in the course of those three events happened only once, in 2007/08 when Ronnie had one against Mark Selby in the 2007 UK Championship semi-finals, and another one in the last 16 of the 2008 World Championship against Mark Williams. In total there was never more than three maximums made during those three events combined in a season, and, other than Ronnie’s “double”, they were always made by three different players. So, this, in my eyes is just a publicity coup, as WST probably looked at the stats and know that the “risk” they are taking is very, very small … No player in their right mind will take the risk to go for a maximum in the second most important ranking tournament of the season, unless, maybe, if they are so far behind that they have forfeited any serious hope to win the match in progress.
4 thoughts on “The 2023 UK Championship starts tomorrow … with an announcement and some sponsor’s concerns …”
Surely such association is much more damaging to the sport’s image, and hence its future
I agree the damage arising from such association should be extensive. I expect that damage to be minimal to non-existent. The reasons:
1. Hardly anyone in the snooker universe is even aware of said unpleasant organization’s brush with the law. My research on other snooker-related sites turned up nothing. Nada. Insofar as they are themselves aware, they keep it under wraps.
2. Even on this site, where it is thankfully mentioned, the reactions in comments are underwhelming, and partly to the effect of, “Whence are the funds supposed to come?”
3. Even with those who know, find it all very damaging, and deem any association with said unpleasant organization dishonorable, the consequences are probably nil. No one will refuse to watch the UK Championship, much less cancel a planned ticket purchase, much less cancel subscriptions, much less abandon (professional) snooker altogether.
4. Not one player, to my knowledge, refused to participate and to run around as an ad for said unpleasant organization. Not a single one.
So yes, the stench arising from professional snooker got even worse, but we are all well-trained to ignore it and enjoy the show. It is not our “job” to be moral and forego the fun.
Indeed, I’m pretty sure none of the players is aware of this. They have been used for years to see betting/gambling related sponsors. They probably don’t look any further. Why should they? But the governing body really should look into who they associate with. Did they do their research? Did they know this? Whatever the answer, it’s bad because either they don’t know and it shows that they are no giving due care to who they associate with, or they do know and have zero moral compass.
It is of course a publicity stunt, but in fact that’s exactly what WST are supposed to do: promote the game. As for the risk, these prizes would be insured, so there isn’t any risk to WST. The reason why big prizes for 147’s stopped was because they were so common that the insurance premiums were no longer cost-effective. There have been people who called for a return for 147 prizemoney, and WST have at least come up with something, however unlikely.
Is it to encourage Ronnie not to go for a maximum only in China as he announced? 🙂
Ronnie O'Sullivan 
I agree the damage arising from such association should be extensive. I expect that damage to be minimal to non-existent. The reasons:
1. Hardly anyone in the snooker universe is even aware of said unpleasant organization’s brush with the law. My research on other snooker-related sites turned up nothing. Nada. Insofar as they are themselves aware, they keep it under wraps.
2. Even on this site, where it is thankfully mentioned, the reactions in comments are underwhelming, and partly to the effect of, “Whence are the funds supposed to come?”
3. Even with those who know, find it all very damaging, and deem any association with said unpleasant organization dishonorable, the consequences are probably nil. No one will refuse to watch the UK Championship, much less cancel a planned ticket purchase, much less cancel subscriptions, much less abandon (professional) snooker altogether.
4. Not one player, to my knowledge, refused to participate and to run around as an ad for said unpleasant organization. Not a single one.
So yes, the stench arising from professional snooker got even worse, but we are all well-trained to ignore it and enjoy the show. It is not our “job” to be moral and forego the fun.
Indeed, I’m pretty sure none of the players is aware of this. They have been used for years to see betting/gambling related sponsors. They probably don’t look any further. Why should they? But the governing body really should look into who they associate with. Did they do their research? Did they know this? Whatever the answer, it’s bad because either they don’t know and it shows that they are no giving due care to who they associate with, or they do know and have zero moral compass.
It is of course a publicity stunt, but in fact that’s exactly what WST are supposed to do: promote the game. As for the risk, these prizes would be insured, so there isn’t any risk to WST. The reason why big prizes for 147’s stopped was because they were so common that the insurance premiums were no longer cost-effective. There have been people who called for a return for 147 prizemoney, and WST have at least come up with something, however unlikely.
Is it to encourage Ronnie not to go for a maximum only in China as he announced? 🙂