Editorial Standards

Editorial independence

FreeExtraChips earns revenue through affiliate links. When a reader clicks a "PLAY NOW" button and registers at the destination casino, the casino's affiliate program pays FreeExtraChips a commission — typically a CPA (cost per acquisition) flat fee, sometimes a revenue share on the player's losses against the house edge. This is the same business model as most independent casino review sites and most travel sites: the publisher gets paid by the merchant, not the reader.

The risk of this model is that publishers can be tempted to surface bonuses that pay the highest commission rather than the bonuses that are best for the reader. FreeExtraChips' separation between commercial and editorial functions is structural:

• Casino selection is not pay-to-list. Every operator in our directory was added because an editor decided it was worth covering — based on license validity, software providers, banking options, and player-reported track record. Casinos cannot purchase a listing.
• Bonus selection is criteria-driven. Bonuses appear in our database when an editor adds them from the operator's promotions page, not when an affiliate program suggests them to us. The criteria for inclusion are: the bonus is actually available, the terms are documented, and the operator is already in our directory.
• Ranking is algorithmic, not commercial. Rankings on category pages (e.g. "Best No Deposit Bonuses") use editorially-defined criteria — wagering requirement, max cashout, FXCheck™ track record, recency — not the commission rate of each link.
• Sponsored content is labelled. If we ever accept paid placement (we currently don't), it will carry a visible SPONSORED badge. The "EXCLUSIVE" tag on some bonuses indicates an exclusive negotiated deal for our readers — not paid placement; it means the offer is unavailable elsewhere.

Source hierarchy

Every factual claim on this site — slot RTP, bonus wagering, country restrictions, payment methods — comes from a specific source, ranked in priority order. When tiers conflict, the higher tier wins and we document the disagreement.

1. Tier 1 — Provider primary source. The official game data page on the slot provider's website (e.g. pragmaticplay.com/en/games/wolf-gold/). We archive each source URL on the Wayback Machine when we record it, so the cited value is reproducible even if the provider later changes the page. This is the canonical reference for RTP, max win, volatility, paylines, and release year.
2. Tier 2 — Regulator certificate. Test reports from accredited testing labs (eCOGRA, GLI, BMM, iTechLabs). When a regulator certificate is publicly accessible, we link to it. Most aren't — regulators provide them to operators under confidentiality. We document the testing lab even when the cert itself isn't public.
3. Tier 3 — In-game paytable observation. Some providers (RTG/SpinLogic, Rival, IGT legacy online catalogue) don't publish public game data pages. For their slots, our editors capture timestamped screenshots of the in-game paytable at licensed operators. Each observation records the operator, the date, and the configured RTP value. Multiple observations across operators triangulate the truth.
4. Tier 4 — Operator bonus terms. For bonus-specific facts (wagering multiplier, max cashout, eligible games, country restrictions), we read the actual T&C on the operator's site, not the promotion page summary. T&Cs trump promotional copy when they disagree.

What we don't use as primary sources: aggregator sites (SlotCatalog, AskGamblers, Casino Guru), affiliate networks' published bonus lists, or operator marketing emails. These can be useful as cross-references — if SlotCatalog reports a different RTP than ours, we re-check the provider source to confirm — but they're not authoritative on their own.

Fact-checking workflow

Every review and methodology page passes through two editors before publication. The author writes; a second editor reviews. The reviewer's job isn't copy-edit (though that happens too) — it's source verification: does every numerical claim link to a primary source? Does the wagering math add up? Is the country restriction list current?

• Step 1 — Author writes the review. Pulls bonus terms from the operator's T&C, slot data from the provider primary source, FXCheck™ history from our internal aggregation.
• Step 2 — Source pass. Author cross-references every figure against the primary source one more time before submitting for review. The dashboard flags any field without an attached source URL.
• Step 3 — Peer review. A second editor (assigned by specialism — RTG bonuses go to the US-facing editor, Microgaming slots to the NetEnt specialist) reads the draft, opens each cited source, and confirms the claims. The reviewer either approves or sends back with notes.
• Step 4 — Publish. Approved drafts go live with both author and reviewer attributed by name on the published page.
• Step 5 — FXCheck™ activation. Once published, the bonus accepts reader reports via the FXCheck™ Yes/No mechanism. Aggregated reports surface as a Verified / Mixed / Issues badge — see FXCheck™ methodology for the algorithm.

How we use AI

Our editors use AI tools in production, and this page says so because readers should not have to guess. A tool may turn a fact sheet, a set of T&C clauses and a regulator register pull into a first draft, check a draft against the house style, or point out where a promotion page and its terms disagree. That is where the tool's role ends.

• Every fact is verified by the editor who signs. Licence numbers come from the regulator's register, bonus terms from the operator's T&C fetched at the time of writing, withdrawal times from our own tests or from player-timed FXClock clocks. Nothing on a published page rests on what a model asserted.
• Verdicts, flags and scores are human decisions. The bottom line of a review, a flag or a hold, and every FXShield grade are decided by the named editor and the reviewer under the published methodology, never by a model.
• Nothing is published automatically. Every page goes through the two-editor workflow above before it goes live, and the editor who signs it answers for it.

We do not use AI to invent author profiles, to produce portraits of people who do not exist, or to write reader reviews or player reports. Where a tool was used in a way that changes how a page should be read, the page says so.

Update cadence

Data goes stale at different rates. We track different data types on different cadences, and the dashboard auto-flags records that need refreshing.

Correction policy

When we get something wrong, we fix it in three steps:

1. Update the data. The incorrect value is replaced with the correct one. The dashboard logs the change with timestamp and the editor who made it.
2. Flag the correction visibly. For factual corrections that affect a reader's decision (wrong wagering, wrong max cashout, missing country restriction), a CORRECTED note appears at the top of the page with the original value, the corrected value, and the date.
3. Notify if material. If the correction affects a published review's headline conclusion (e.g. we recommended a bonus that turns out to have a hidden cap), we add an editor note to the review and, where the FXCheck history shows reports affected by the bad data, we tag those reports for context.

Minor edits (typos, formatting, link updates) don't trigger a visible correction note — they're logged in the dashboard's change history but not flagged on the published page. The bar for a visible correction is: would a reader have made a different decision if they'd seen the right value?

If you spot an error on the site, contact us. We respond to factual corrections within 48 hours and credit the first reporter when they provide a name.

Conflict-of-interest policy

• Editors disclose financial relationships. If an editor has an ownership stake, paid consulting relationship, or family employment connection to any operator we cover, that relationship is recorded internally. The editor recuses from reviewing that operator.
• Gift acceptance is bounded. Operators occasionally offer junket invitations, branded merchandise, or testing accounts. Branded merchandise under €50 is acceptable. Testing accounts used for verification are acceptable provided the editor doesn't deposit personal funds and the account is closed after testing. Junket invitations and any benefit over €50 require disclosure and a second editor's sign-off before acceptance.
• Editors don't play at operators they review. We make an exception for short-duration testing accounts used for verification (FXCheck testing, bonus clearance verification). For regular personal play, editors choose operators outside their coverage area.
• No personal SEO/affiliate links. Editors don't run their own competing affiliate sites on the same operators they cover at FreeExtraChips. The exclusivity is in the employment terms.

Author credentials

Every review and methodology page on this site is bylined. Author attribution is at the top of the page, linked to a public author profile that lists the editor's specialism area, their RTP verification track record, and the bonuses they've reviewed.

Each editor has a clearly-scoped specialism. The specialism isn't an exclusivity rule (any editor can write any review when needed), but reviews and verifications default to the editor whose specialism matches the subject:

• US-facing providers (Pragmatic Play, BGaming, SpinLogic/RTG, Rival, IGT legacy) — multi-tier RTP disclosure on Pragmatic catalogue is a specialism focus.
• EU classic providers (NetEnt, Microgaming) — single-tier provider verification with deep historical knowledge of the catalogue.
• Modern European providers (Play'n GO, BetSoft, Yggdrasil, Habanero) — multi-tier disclosure on Play'n GO catalogue.
• Payments & risk — withdrawal mechanics, payment method asymmetries, crypto FX exposure, bonus clearance math.

Full editor profiles, including bylined work, are at the editorial team page.

Bylines and pen names

Our editors publish under professional pen names. Every pen name corresponds to one real member of the editorial team, and no name is shared between people. The gambling industry is small and not always friendly, and our editors keep their private identities out of it; the pen name is how the same person stays accountable for their work over time.

• Profiles state only what is true. Each profile describes the editor's actual beat and verification work: what they cover, what they check, and the bylined record behind it. No invented credentials, no social profiles created to support a byline. Portraits are stylised renderings of the editors themselves, not stock images or invented faces.
• One name, one person. A pen name is never shared, and the person behind it reviews what carries their signature. Reviewer attribution on a page means that second editor read the draft and opened the sources.
• The publisher answers for the content. Editorial responsibility for everything published here rests with FreeExtraChips. Corrections follow the correction policy above and are recorded on the page concerned.
• Contributors, same rules. Regular outside contributors, such as the writers of the Casino Bonus Blog, publish under pen names on the same terms: one real person per name, a profile that states only what is true, and the publisher answering for what is published. Their profiles say that they are contributors rather than members of the editorial desk.

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