Safer Gambling

5 steps to help you stay in control

Here at MrQ, we want you to have fun – safe fun. Gambling is supposed to be an enjoyable experience, not something that causes stress, worry or sadness. The best way to do that is to make sure you’re in control of your gambling, not the other way round.

We’re committed to making sure our players (that’s you!) understand the risks related to gambling and have the tools to help keep them safe. Follow our five-step guide to staying in the driving seat, every stop along the way.

We’ll also check in with you now and again - just to be sure everything’s OK and you’re still having fun and are happy with your play and spend levels with us.

1. Set a limit

Deposit Limits

Decide how much you can afford to spend and stick to it! You can set a daily, weekly or monthly deposit limit on your account whenever you like – before you make your first deposit or at any time after that.

Once set, you can reduce or lower your deposit limit at any time. Simply login and go to the 'My account' section, then click 'Limits'. Here you will be able to choose a lower amount, which will be changed immediately.

If you want to increase or remove your current limit, you can do this in your account. Once we have your request, we’ll review your account and apply a 24-hour cooling off period to give you time to change your mind if you want to. After this, you’ll need to re-confirm your request before the change is complete.

Just visit your account to set or change your deposit limit(s).

2. Keep it real

Reality Checks

To make sure time doesn’t run away from you while you’re playing, you can set a time limit on how long you can play for. You can choose from 30 minutes, 1 hour, 2 hour or 4 hours. When time’s up, a notification will pop up on your screen.

You can then decide whether you want to stop or carry on. If you choose to keep playing, a new reminder will appear after your allocated time period has passed. This way, you can keep track of the total time you’ve spent playing. On this pop up, you will also be able to view your Total Losses, Total Winnings, and Total Duration to keep track of your play.

You can change or remove your Reality Check settings at any time.

To set up a Reality Check, go to your account.

3. Be honest with yourself

Keep track

Do you know how much money you’ve spent today? This week? This month? You should. You can check all of your deposits, withdrawals and your total losses in your account.

Go to 'My account', and click on 'Wallet' to be able to access your Transaction History, where you can filter through different time periods, or  you can look at your Game History, which will show you your lifetime bets, wins, and net wins.

If your activity levels are more than what you expected, you can set any desired deposit limits and/or reality checks.

Self-assessment

To keep on top of your gambling, it’s good to stop every now and again to ask yourself some of the questions below.

  1. Do you sometimes gamble for longer than you intend to?
  2. Have you ever used money that was saved for something else, or to try and win back what you lost?
  3. Do you sometimes lose track of time when you’re playing?
  4. Do other people say that you spend too much time playing?
  5. Do you devote time to playing when you should be doing something else?
  6. Have you ever lost more money than you intended to?
  7. When you finish betting or playing how do you feel – is it a bad feeling?
  8. Has gambling ever left you short of money?
  9. Do you feel irritated if you haven’t played in a while?

Answering yes to any of them doesn’t mean you have a problem – but you should consider Steps 1 and 2 or perhaps even Step 4 to keep things under control.

If you’ve already set a limit on your account and are still a little worried, it might be worth speaking to someone at one of the support groups below – just to put your mind at rest.

4. Take some time out or exclude

If you feel like you need a break from gambling you can apply a Time-Out or Self-Exclusion on your account. During this time you won’t be able to log-in or access your account.

Time-Out

You can apply a Time-Out to your account for 24 hours, 48 hours, 1 week, 2 weeks, 3 weeks, 4 weeks, 5 weeks, or 6 weeks. At the end of the suspension period, your account will be reactivated and you can log-in and play again.

You can apply a Time-Out to your account yourself, or if you prefer, contact us at [email protected].

Self-Exclusion

Operator exclusion

You may apply a Self-Exclusion to your account from 6 months onwards. If you choose to self-exclude, we’ll close your account and refund any balance above £1.00 back to the active payment method registered on your account. Where the remaining balance in your account is £0.99 or less we’ll donate it to a Safer Gambling charity.

We’ll also remove you from our marketing lists, so you won’t receive any communication from us. We’d also recommend that you contact any other gambling sites you play with and ask for an exclusion from those too.

If you decide that you’d like to come back and play again at the end of your exclusion period, you need to contact us in writing with your request. Once we’ve received your request, we’ll arrange a phone call to discuss.

Any request to return to gambling will be subject to a 24-hour cooling period and full review of your account.

National Exclusion

MrQ is registered with GAMSTOP – the UK National online Self-Exclusion Scheme which lets players exclude from all participating operators gambling sites through one self-exclusion request for a period of six months, one year or five years.

This means that once you’re registered with GAMSTOP and your exclusion has been confirmed, you won’t be able to sign up or log in to any participating operator’s gambling site for the period of your exclusion.

For more information visit: www.gamstop.co.uk - or call their free helpline on 0800 138 6518 (opening hours 08:00 am - midnight) for more information.

5. Get help & support

You can stop yourself accessing gambling sites completely by installing anti-gambling software on your computer. For more information visit: GamBlock or Gamban.

If you’d like any more information or want to discuss our Safer Gambling tools please contact our support team at [email protected].

We may also contact you every now and again – just to check everything’s OK and you’re happy with how things are going.

Block Gambling Transactions on your bank card

Speak to your bank or card issuer about blocking gambling transaction on your card.

Banks and card providers such as Monzo, Barclays, Lloyds, Royal Bank of Scotland and Santander all offer a service which blocks you from using your card for gambling transactions.

Over 18s only

It’s illegal for someone under 18 years old to gamble. MrQ reserves the right to ask for proof of age from any customer and to carry out checks to verify the information provided.

Player accounts may be suspended and funds withheld until satisfactory proof of age is provided.

The legal gambling age varies across the world, so please check the legal age for gambling where you live.

To prevent illegal/underage gambling, we’ll take all reasonable steps to check that a customer playing on our sites is over 18 and are who they say they are.

We ask for your help in stopping young and vulnerable people from playing on our site by keeping your account details and password safe and confidential at all times.

To see what else you can do to help, see below.

Protect young and underage people

There are lots of third-party apps that parents and guardians can use to oversee or restrict the use of their computer’s access to the internet.

Protects children from inappropriate web content: Net Nanny

Allows parents to add their own sites to a block list: CYBERsitter (also known as black.27labs)

MrQ fully supports the work of GamCare and other similar organisations. We believe that gambling should be a fun and positive experience for all our customers – those that are over 18.

Helplines & Information

If you’d like more advice, help, or just want to talk to someone, please contact any of the organisations listed below.