How Entries Are Made
Every entry in the reading room follows the same documented process. It is set out here so a reader can judge the work and know where each fact was found.
How are topics chosen?
From search demand data. We look at the questions readers put to search engines about poker hands, odds, Hold'em and casino history, and write the entry that answers one of them that the shelves do not yet hold. Each entry belongs to one subject, so the shelves build into a complete account over time.
Which sources does the reading room rely on?
Our subjects rest on three kinds of evidence, and we go to each directly:
- Rulebooks and approved game rules. The rules of casino games as approved and published by state gaming regulators, and the house rules and paytables operators publish.
- Arithmetic from first principles. Hand counts and probabilities are derived from the deck itself and shown step by step, so a reader can repeat the count. Where a figure is quoted from elsewhere, the source is named.
- Historical records. Contemporary newspapers, licensing and court records, company filings, official statistics and scholarly histories. Later retellings are used to show what the legend says, not to establish what happened.
Each entry closes with a bibliography, and links sit on the facts they support.
How are entries written and checked?
Entries are drafted with the help of AI writing tools, working only from the sources gathered for that entry. Before an entry is shelved, automated checks test it for sourcing, links and figures: every figure must trace to a cited source or to the shown calculation, links must resolve, and a draft that fails is held back. We do not claim that a historian, a mathematician or any other human expert has reviewed each entry, and nobody plays a hand or visits a table for a story.
What are the limits of an entry?
Casino rules and paytables vary by venue and change over time, and the historical record can be revised by new evidence. An entry describes its sources as they stood when it was written or last updated.
How do corrections work?
If an entry misstates a rule, a count or a date, tell us through our contact form, citing the source if you can. We check it against the primary source and amend the entry if it is wrong. An entry revised in substance shows the date of its update.
How are entries kept current?
We revisit entries when approved rules change, when a better source comes to light, or when the facts they rely on go stale. The update date on each entry shows when that last happened.
