Happy Fish

What is Happy Fish?

“You have to follow that chain,” Madsen says. In some cases, that chain can involve multiple layers. “A site might redirect ten times before reaching the actual destination.”

Madsen describes Trace2Trace as “a large search engine that continuously crawls websites”.

AI is used, but only towards the end of the process. First, the system gathers objective indicators; AI is then used to assess the overall pattern and probability of a connection. “We only provide evidence-based findings,” Madsen says. “We don’t say that something is a mirror site because we suspect it is. It is only reported when we are 100% confident there is a match.”

How to play Happy Fish

For any consumer-facing businesses, a suspension is likely existential and such appears to have been the case here. But wider implications have to be considered before the two sites are binned forever.

The Commission’s intervention followed hot on the heels of the £600,000 regulatory settlement with QuinnBet, announced eight days earlier.

Its findings contained an all-too-familiar combination of ineffective systems, delayed interventions and inadequate source-of-funds controls. One customer placed approximately 4,800 bets in one day and 7,000 the next without being flagged. Another, whose payslips showed monthly earnings of about £2,000, deposited and lost £9,000 in four days.

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Blok called for more decisive immediate action, saying: “The government must act now through criminal prosecutions by the Public Prosecution Service, alongside measures taken by regulators and licensed operators. 

“Tackling illegal gambling requires joint responsibility from banks, payment providers and hosting services who facilitate these platforms.”

The lottery operator also criticised government proposals for a blanket advertising ban on licensed online gambling providers in June. It argued such restrictions could inadvertently drive more players towards unregulated, illegal platforms.