Fact-Checking Policy
Our Approach
Gambling industry news has a specific verification problem: most of what circulates originates from parties with something to sell. Operators announce “record” results, suppliers announce “landmark” deals, and affiliates republish it all uncritically. CASINO NEWS PRESS treats every claim, especially the flattering ones, as unverified until it has been checked against a source that does not benefit from the claim being believed. This page describes how we do that.
The Hierarchy of Sources
Not all sources are equal, and our verification workflow reflects a strict hierarchy:
- Official registers and regulators: license databases, regulator announcements, enforcement notices, and public registers. For any claim about licensing, these are definitive.
- Legal and financial filings: court records, stock exchange disclosures, annual reports, and audited accounts. Numbers reported to regulators under penalty outrank numbers in press releases.
- Official company statements: press releases and spokespeople, useful as the company’s position, but treated as claims to verify, not facts established.
- Reputable secondary reporting: other credible outlets, always credited, and independently checked before we repeat anything consequential.
- Unverified material: rumors, anonymous forum posts, and social media claims, which are never a sufficient basis for publication on their own.
What We Verify Before Publishing
Operator and Supplier Announcements
When a company announces a launch, deal, or milestone, we ask: does the counterparty confirm it? Does the regulator’s register reflect it? Do the numbers match prior filings? A partnership announced by one side is reported as exactly that until the other side confirms. “Largest,” “first,” and “fastest-growing” claims are checked against the record or attributed as the company’s own characterization.
Regulatory and Licensing Stories
Claims about license grants, suspensions, revocations, and fines are checked directly against the issuing regulator: the official register entry, the published decision, or a statement from the authority itself. This matters because license status changes are appealed, stayed, and reversed, and because wrongly describing an operator as unlicensed, or licensed, causes real harm in both directions. Where a decision is under appeal, we say so.
Financial Figures
Revenue, deal values, and fines are traced to source documents, with currency, reporting period, and basis (gross gaming revenue versus net, for instance) stated so numbers are not comparable-sounding but incomparable. Restatements and corrections to figures are covered when material.
Legal Claims
Allegations of unlawful conduct are attributed to the documents or parties making them, checked against court records where available, and always distinguished from established findings. An indictment is not a conviction, a complaint is not a judgment, and our wording preserves those differences.
How the Process Works
- Every article is verified against primary sources before publication, with links to those sources wherever they are public.
- Claims that cannot be verified are either omitted, or published with explicit attribution and a clear statement of what remains unconfirmed.
- Significant claims about a company or person trigger a request for comment before publication, with the response, or its absence, reported.
- Articles receive a second editorial read before publication, with extra scrutiny on numbers, names, dates, jurisdictions, and license statuses, the categories where errors hurt most.
Rumors and Developing Stories
Some of the most consequential industry news, acquisitions in progress, licenses about to be pulled, executives about to exit, surfaces first as rumor. Our rule: we report rumors only when they are newsworthy in themselves, and we label them unambiguously as unconfirmed, describe what we know about their origin, and state what we did to verify them. When the facts land, we update the story and mark the update. What we never do is launder a rumor into a fact through confident phrasing.
After Publication
Verification does not end at publish. The industry’s facts move: appeals succeed, deals collapse, figures get restated. We monitor developments on significant stories and add dated updates where warranted. When we simply got something wrong, our Corrections Policy governs, and corrections are made visibly, not silently.
Help Us
Readers inside the industry are our best error-detection system. If you can show, with a document, register entry, or filing, that something we published is wrong, email support@casinonewspress.com with the subject line CORRECTION. If you have knowledge of a story we should be checking, use TIP. Both are read by the editorial team, both are verified through the process above, and confidentiality is respected as described in our Editorial Standards.
