Editorial Independence Policy

§1. The Promise

We treat editorial independence as an architectural property of the business, not a marketing claim. The rules below are what that architecture looks like.

§2. Editorial vs. Commercial

Editorial means any GAMB·8 output that makes a factual claim, grade, or judgment about a third party: Truth Engine scores and integrity caps, Edge and sub-scores, casino reputation / reserve / license analysis, investigations, corrections, dispute publications, rankings, tier lists, and any public post on social channels by GAMB·8 staff making claims about a covered subject.

Commercial means everything else we sell or operate: Pro subscriptions, Tools, API access, bots, merchandise, events, and the inbound partner program.

§3. Forbidden Revenue

GAMB·8 OÜ will not accept, in any form — cash, credit, discount, in-kind service, equity, revenue share, referral fee, hosting credit, coupon, gift, or introduction — any of the following:

• Sponsorships, retainers, or grants from gambling operators or their parent groups.
• Affiliate commissions paid to GAMB·8 by operators for user signups, deposits, or losses.
• Sponsorships from gambling software or game providers, platform vendors, or payment processors serving gambling operators.
• Paid guest-posts, backlink purchases, paid editorial insertion, or paid ranking placement.
• Display advertising from any of the above on any Editorial surface.
• Payments tied to grading outcomes, ranking position, comment moderation about a subject, or removal of coverage.
• Any payments from an entity under active Editorial investigation, for any purpose, until 12 months after that investigation is closed.

This list is non-exhaustive. The Editorial Lead's refusal is itself disclosable in the annual Transparency Report.

§4. Disclosed Allowed Revenue

• Reader-paid subscriptions (Pro, API, Tools, Founding Partner, Founding Supporter).
• Patron or supporter donations from individuals, opt-in listed at /supporters. Anonymous donations are accepted subject to AML thresholds and listed as "Anonymous."
• Journalism or open-source grants, listed at /supporters with grant-maker, amount, and any conditions.
• Commissions paid by GAMB·8 to referrers who bring new paying Tools users. This is money flowing out of GAMB·8 to reward user acquisition; it is not revenue received from any operator, streamer, or covered subject. See the Partner Program Disclosure.

§5. The Firewall

• Ranking, scoring, and tier assignment are produced by documented methodology and may not be modified on commercial grounds.
• Commercial partners, affiliates, supporters, and Founding Partners have no preview, no embargoed notice, and no authority to delay or suppress Editorial publication.
• A subject's commercial relationship with GAMB·8 does not alter their Editorial treatment. A Founding Partner can and will receive the lowest Truth tier if the evidence supports it.
• Tools pricing, product roadmap, and marketing are Commercial decisions and may not be used to reward or punish Editorial subjects.
• Founder-level commitment: the founder will not soften or delete Editorial coverage of a subject with whom GAMB·8 has an active commercial relationship. Doing so requires a dated memo in /corrections stating the evidence-based reason.

§6. Disclosure Obligations

• Any subject of Editorial coverage who has a current or past-24-month commercial relationship with GAMB·8 — of any amount — is labelled on their subject page with a "Commercial relationship" box linking to this policy.
• Editorial pieces covering such subjects carry an inline disclosure line, not only the subject-page box.
• Partner Program referral links (inbound) are labelled with a Partner badge at every surface they appear, per the Affiliate Disclosure. GAMB·8 does not publish outbound affiliate links to operators, so there are none to label.
• Staff and contractor authors disclose conflicts in per-piece bylines or recuse.
• Methodology and data sources are published at /truth/methodology and versioned. Third-party data providers are named at /legal/subprocessors.
• AI assistance in Editorial work is disclosed per /legal/ai-compliance. AI-only output is never published; a human Editorial reviewer approves every piece.

§7. Subjects' Rights

Right of reply

Every named subject of an investigation receives at least 14 days to respond before first publication. Exception: "breaking harm" — ongoing fraud, imminent user loss, or evidence at risk of destruction — where 48 hours may be used instead, with the urgency rationale stated in the published piece.

Right of correction

Factual errors verified by the Editorial process are corrected within 7 business days with a dated correction note. Prior versions are retained at /corrections.

Right to methodology

Subjects may see the evidence bar applied to their coverage and rebut using the same evidence types.

Right to appeal scoring

Truth Engine integrity caps follow a 30-day observation window with a documented appeal process at /truth/appeal.

§8. Legal Threats

Cease-and-desist letters and pre-publication legal threats do not modify coverage. Every legal threat is logged. The fact of each threat is summarized in the annual Transparency Report. By default, we publish a summary and redacted copy; the full text is released after 90 days unless a legal order blocks disclosure, in which case the existence of the block is itself noted.

§9. Decision Authority

• Editorial decisions are the Editorial Lead's. Pre-hire of a separate Editorial Lead, the founder is Editorial Lead.
• The founder logs every commercial negotiation where the counterparty is a current or plausibly future Editorial subject. The founder recuses (rather than logging) where the counterparty is currently under active Truth Engine integrity-cap investigation.
• Methodology changes are published at /truth/methodology with a dated changelog. Substantive changes (new score components, new caps, changes to evidence bar) are announced at least 14 days before effective date.
• An Ombudsperson function is added when either (a) a second person is hired into the Editorial role, or (b) GAMB·8 OÜ annual revenue exceeds €100,000 — whichever comes first. Until then, independence@gamb8.com correspondence is summarized in the annual Transparency Report.

§10. Founder Personal Conflicts

The founder publishes at /legal/company:

• All direct financial relationships with covered subjects (advisory, equity, loans, paid consulting).
• Immediate-family relationships with covered subjects.
• Prior employment at covered operators or affiliates.
• Bucket disclosure of personal gambling accounts at covered operators ("active accounts at N of M covered operators") — bucketed, not named, for operational security reasons that are themselves disclosed.

The founder will not accept personal gifts valued above €50 from covered subjects.

§11. Sources & Whistleblowers

• Confidential sources may request anonymity, which is upheld short of a court order we have exhausted appeals on.
• A SecureDrop or equivalent anonymous submission channel is on the roadmap. Interim channel: whistleblow@gamb8.com (encrypted-mail only; PGP key at /legal/company).
• Sources are not paid for information. This is distinct from §12.

§12. Paid Research (Virtual Assistants)

• VAs and contract researchers who synthesize public information for GAMB·8 are paid under contract; they are not "sources" under §11.
• VA work product is reviewed by the Editorial Lead before publication.
• VAs sign the same confidentiality terms as staff; no VA has unilateral publication authority.

§13. Amendments

This policy is amended only by a dated, published revision at /legal/editorial-independence/history. Substantive changes (§3, §5, §6, §7, §9, §10, §11, §12) require 14 days advance notice. Every historical version is permanently retained.

§14. Complaints

• Editorial corrections: corrections@gamb8.com
• Independence-policy violations: independence@gamb8.com
• Pre-Ombudsperson, these route to the Editorial Lead. A summary of complaints received, resolved, and outstanding appears in the annual Transparency Report.

§15. Self-Scrutiny

GAMB·8 publishes its own material operational incidents (data leaks, methodology bugs, significant outages) at /legal/transparency-report under a 30-day cure-or-disclose standard.

§16. Jurisdiction & Nature of This Policy

Issued by GAMB·8 OÜ under the laws of the Republic of Estonia. This policy is a governance commitment to readers and does not itself create third-party contractual rights; where it conflicts with a user's contract (Terms of Service) the Terms control the contract and this policy controls our behavior.

Contact