Employees of a betting company whose licence was suspended last month yesterday staged a protest outside the Gaming Authority offices in Mrieħel, complaining they had not been paid since June.

“We have mortgages to pay and the banks are breathing down our neck to honour the deadline,” Fabio Zanda from Uniq Group, told the Times of Malta.

The irate employee was among a group of 20 workers, mainly Italians, who have been out of work since July 23 when the gaming watchdog suspended the licences of six betting companies.

The move followed a money laundering probe by the Italian authorities which targeted the Calabrian ’Ndrangheta.

In addition, these companies had their assets seized by the Maltese authorities.

Since then the offices of Uniq Group in Sliema have been closed and its directors deported to Italy as part of the probe. In total the betting company had about 100 workers on its books, a fifth of whom were Maltese.

Yesterday’s protest started at about 11am when the employees turned up at the offices of the authority requesting an urgent meeting.

Sometime later, two workers’ representatives were invited in for talks. Four hours later their colleagues were still outside, anxiously waiting for some positive news.

Workers who spoke to this newspaper complained they could no longer make ends meet and expressed anger at the fact that they were being perceived as potential suspects.

“To add insult to injury, those of us who applied for a job with other gaming companies were treated like criminals for the simple fact that we worked for Uniq Group,” they said.

By the time of writing, no details had emerged on the outcome of the meeting held between the workers’ representatives and the gaming authority officials.