Editorial independence policy
A rating on AskTheBookie is not for sale. This page sets out the rules that keep it that way: how business relationships are handled, how conflicts are disclosed, and when a review may say a product was tested.
Ratings are not for sale
No company can pay for a review, a higher score or a better place in a list, and no company can pay to have a bad fact taken out. A rating comes from the factors in our review methodology, applied the same way to every company in the same section.
I spent my working life on the book's side of the counter. A book that could buy its reviews would be the last one I'd trust with my money, and I'd expect you to think the same of us.
Business relationships
AskTheBookie takes no affiliate commissions and no revenue share. It earns from fixed fees for verification, advertising and sponsored articles, set out in our affiliate disclosure. Where we have a business relationship with a company we review, the review says so, plainly and on the page, not in small print somewhere else. Companies in the same business network as this site are listed in our conflict-of-interest policy.
A relationship never changes a rating. Not by a point. It doesn't move a score up, it doesn't keep a complaint off the page, and it doesn't buy a company a kinder sentence. Whatever the arrangement, if a company slows its payouts, the review says it is slow. If I wouldn't put my own money there, the review says that too.
Conflicts of interest
Anyone who writes or edits a review declares any interest in the company being reviewed or in a direct competitor: money owed, a stake, a job, a close tie. A writer with an interest does not write or score that review.
What a review shows
Every review records the sources we checked and the date the facts were last verified, so you can see for yourself how fresh the information is and where it came from before you decide whether to trust it with your money. A fact we can't verify, or one that has gone stale, comes out of the review instead of staying in because it reads well.
Each review also shows two lines:
- ATB Tested: Yes/No. Yes only when we hold a record of the test: the account, what was done and when. A review says a product was personally tested only when that record exists.
- Operator Verified: Yes/No. Yes only when the company itself has confirmed the facts the review lists.
A No on either line is not a mark against the company. It tells you how far the review's facts have been checked, which is something you should know before you deposit on the strength of it.
When we're wrong
Mistakes are corrected in the open, with the date, under our corrections process. A review is a reading of a company on a given day, the same way a line is a reading of a game. Bet what you can afford to lose whatever any review says, including ours.