Editorial Principles and Policies 🎖️ IrishLuck.ie

Irishluck Editorial Principles

Our team of experienced writers from varying academic and corporate backgrounds produces content under our mutually established principles. Most of these writers have been professional players or have exclusively written about the gambling industry for years. Many also have first-hand experience with online casinos in Ireland.

By only employing professionals to write for us, you may rest assured that all the information you will find on our pages has been vetted thoroughly. The content our writers publish keeps players in the know and facilitates an understanding of the inner workings of the online gambling industry. By adhering to these principles, our writing team ensures readers have all the information they need, regardless of where they choose to play.

Where Did Our Editorial Guidelines Come From?

Irishluck is a team effort, and although that team comprises different people from different walks of life, they share the same universal values that allow them to lay out these guidelines together. This has helped create a transparent brand we are very proud of. Our editorial principles were peer-written by our staff of writers based on the following guidelines:

Content Creation and Review Process

We have several core elements in place when it comes to creating and publishing our content. To do so, we follow a couple of practices:

Selecting Casinos and Sportsbooks for Review

Hundreds of operators contact our editorial team every month to be listed on our site. Furthermore, our team also dedicates hours of research to find the latest online casinos and sports betting sites. An operator has to go through a process of fact-checking, safety checking and other checks to be listed on our listings, which is highlighted on this page.

Criteria for Evaluation

This part of our content creation process includes making sure the casinos listed pass the Irishluck test. We look through every nook and cranny, such as licencing, selection of games, banking options, and much more.

Ensuring Objectivity in Reviews

Ensuring fairness in online casino and sportsbook reviews is super important. We make sure our reviews are honest and unbiased by looking at lots of different things like game choices, how easy it is to use the site, bonuses, customer service, and payment options. Our goal is to give readers straightforward info so they can pick the best platform for them. By keeping things fair, we hope to build trust with our readers and help them make smart choices in the gaming world.

Just because Irishluck is an affiliate website does not mean we do not value our players’ safety and interests. Our writing team has no affiliation with any online gambling platform it reviews. Based on that ideology, if we see a casino platform conducting unfair business or should any conflicts of interest arise, we immediately terminate our relationship with the casino. This guarantees that we only value transparency, fairness, and objectivity above all else in our reviews.

The Role of User Experience in Our Reviews

User comments and interactions are very important. Our team is developing a comments section where readers can leave their thoughts on a particular casino, whether good or bad. This helps ensure transparency and honesty and helps other readers make the best choice for their gaming experience. Furthermore, our casino and sportsbook reviews have a section titled Would You Recommend Casino Name? where they can vote thumbs up or down depending on their experience.

Accurate and Updated Information

We ensure to stay on top of the casinos we review on our site regarding the information we list about them. Such information could be about a casino’s bonus promotions, terms and conditions, and whatnot. With professional writers and reviewers on our team with years’ worth of experience with casino games, online or offline, we focus mainly on accuracy. We test every casino to be reviewed, so we know what the player is getting out of the experience while highlighting areas that need improvement.

We constantly stay in touch with all the brands we feature. Our final verdicts come from multiple factors essential to our players’ experience, including the casino's quantity and quality of the games, withdrawal and deposit speeds, the quality of the customer support offered, and much more.

Corrections

Despite all our experience, research and vetting, errors are bound to happen. Realistically, negative feedback is also inevitable. To remedy that, our dedicated team constantly checks that the information is correct and without errors. Moreover, as part of our editorial guidelines, our team agrees that any reported errors will be thoroughly reviewed and rectified whenever necessary. That said, we openly invite all our viewers to inform us of any mistakes.

Our team will work to make fixes immediately should there be any mistakes in our information or if the content suggests even a hint of bias. It is easier for us to understand your expectations and needs regarding online gambling through constructive criticism and feedback. That way, we can deliver the right content to satisfy your online gambling needs.

Feedback

We at Irishluck encourage our readers to offer feedback on our content. Such feedback may include the players’ experience with us or a casino platform we represent. This helps us understand whether our content is helpful and to learn from players’ experiences themselves. It also lets us accurately picture how our affiliates treat their players. Ultimately, your feedback or complaints help us know what information is essential when writing casino reviews.

As mentioned under The Role of User Experience in Our Reviews, we have multiple features in place where readers can leave their feedback and we are in the process of developing a comments section.

Disclosed Sources

Aside from our writing team’s experience and knowledge, we make it so that our provided content is sourced from proven facts from reputable places. Such content may include sources like mainstream news and press releases. Most of our pages contain links to external sources where readers may review our references.

Freshness

Our team at Irishluck is fully aware that the online gambling industry is subject to constant changes. Online casinos change their sign-up offers and other promotions regularly, new game titles come out tremendously, and exclusive bonuses come and go with the changing seasons. You could say that nothing is at a standstill in the casino industry.

Once a casino review is written and published, that is not where its story ends. With Irishluck’s main goal to be a one-stop shop for players, we regularly review our reviews to ensure that anything published a few weeks or even a few days ago is still relevant and fresh. You will also find a timestamp at the top of every review showing when it was last updated.

Fact-Checking Protocols

These protocols ensure that all information we present to our readers is accurate and reliable. We meticulously verify sources and cross-reference details to maintain the highest standards of credibility and trustworthiness. Below, you will find our step-by-step fact-checking process:

Fact-Checking Process: Step by Step

Finding Operators: As mentioned above, we dedicate time to finding new operators and vetting the applications we receive from Irish online casinos and sports betting sites.
Source Verification: We check that the operator is legit and not a scam. We confirm the credibility of the source, ensuring they are reputable and reliable.
Data Verification: The next step is to confirm the numbers. Numerical information, such as the amount of payment methods stated, is confirmed on the operator's site and checked against other reliable sources.
Expert Consultation: Each member of our editorial team has an expertise area. If we want to fact-check something about payment methods, Dermot Heathcote steps in, or if we want to confirm something about slot games, we ask Kolade, our online slot expert, to check it. Ultimately, everything passes through our Head of Content for more checking before publishing.
Contextual Analysis: The information gathered is analysed to ensure that it is not taken out of context.
Editorial Review: Finally, an editorial review is conducted to assess the overall accuracy, coherence, and quality of the content before publication. Our Head of Content also does this.

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Verifying Legal and Regulatory Compliance

We only recommend online casinos that have a license from reputable gambling authorities. By ensuring these commissions regulate our casinos, players can rest assured knowing that they can enjoy their online casino experience in a safe, secure and fair environment. Not only that, but they are each governed by their own set of rules and laws in their jurisdictions, all in place to adhere to and sustain the aforementioned values.

Meet Our Fact-Checker: Rebecca Mackay

Rebecca is Irishluck's Head of Content, and one of her duties is to fact-check all content before it is given the green light to be published by the publishing team. This process involves rigorous checking and research, and she has several methodologies in place to ensure the content is factual. Rebecca has an ACES Introductory Certificate in Editing & Fact-checking Fundamentals with IFCN from Poynter. This certification specialises in fact-checking and editing.

Find Out More About Rebecca

Ethical Considerations

We also take into account several ethical considerations before publishing our content:

Navigating Conflicts of Interest: We ensure that our reviews are unbiased. Transparency helps readers understand the context of our recommendations and make informed decisions. Additionally, we strive to keep our reviews and ratings objective by focusing on factors like user experience, game variety, bonuses, and customer service, rather than favoring specific companies or brands. We uphold our audience's trust and ensure our content's credibility by prioritising neutrality and transparency.
Editorial Independence and Integrity: We maintain complete autonomy over our content, which is protected by the DMCA. Our commitment to integrity means that our content reflects honest assessments and unbiased opinions.
Our Commitment to Fair Play: Irishluck is committed to ensuring fair play for everyone, from our team, our partners, and our readers. Everyone's feedback is greatly appreciated and encouraged. We want to hear from you on how we can make your experience on Irishluck better!

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Transparency in Affiliate Relationships

Maintaining a strong relationship with our partners is crucial. Here's how we do it:

How Affiliate Relationships Work: A partner contacts us, or our team finds a new operator, and we put their site under evaluation. If that operator gets the Irishluck stamp of approval, we list it on our site and get the best deal possible for our readers. We may receive a commission when you click on certain links within our content and purchase or sign up. However, these relationships don't influence our reviews or recommendations; we remain committed to providing unbiased insights to help you make informed decisions.
Ensuring Editorial Independence: What this means is that our reviews and recommendations are based solely on our research and analysis. Our content is done just by us and it is not influenced by anything external.
Disclosures and Transparency: As already mentioned, transparency is crucial. All our pages on Irishluck have an affiliate disclosure at the top of the page stating the necessary information so our readers are aware.

User Engagement and Feedback

Feedback is essential because it helps us improve our services. Here is how we process any feedback given and how we add it to our content accordingly:

How We Incorporate User Feedback: Currently, we are in the process of building a comment section. However, we still get feedback via our emails and the thumbs up/down feature and through our customer service team. Feedback is thoroughly read, understood and communicated with the entire team. Then, once we ensure that everyone is on board and the internal discussions have been held, we apply the necessary changes.
Responding to User Concerns and Questions: Every page on our site ends with a detailed FAQ section. These FAQs are taken from the questions we get from our readers, and we add them to the relevant pages and provide a detailed answer.
Building a Community of Trust: Ultimately, trust is critical to us. When publishing our content, we always keep our readers' trust in mind. That is why we take a lot of things into consideration before hitting that publish button.

Why are Editorial Principles Important?

Editorial principles are important for our team as they help set a standard for structuring the content we present to you, the readers. Whenever we craft something new for you to read, we keep in mind that we must maintain journalistic integrity and adhere to ethical standards. We use objectivity and accuracy as a starting point. Also, we will correct and update information as necessary, disclose resources when possible, and welcome any feedback. In this way, our editorial principles keep us, as a team, responsible for the information we provide in the following ways:

We remain consistent so you, the reader, can know what to expect in our content.
We remain clear in what we're saying so you, the reader, can effectively understand our content.
We remain honest by fact-checking and verifying so you, the reader, know that you can trust us and not fall victim to rogue blacklisted casinos.
We remain ethical by avoiding plagiarism and respecting copyright laws so you, the reader, know our content is original and transparent.

Do you want to learn more about how we rate casinos, create content and apply these editorial guidelines? Check out our Rating Guidelines page for more information.

Got A Question?

We have the answer! If you want further clarifications on our publishing principles that we presented on this page, or would like to give us feedback or have any concerns you'd want addressed, drop us an email at editorial@irishluck.ie, and we will get back to you between 24-48 hours. That is an Irishluck guarantee.

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