Editorial standards

How We Verify

Gambling stories attract invented numbers. Winnings inflate with every retelling, films rewrite people into composites, and affiliate sites republish figures nobody can trace. BigWinStories exists to do the opposite, and this page is the method, in public.

Every figure gets a grade

Every number we publish carries one of three grades, printed next to the claim:

DOCUMENTED, supported by public record (court filings, partnership records, contemporaneous reporting) or consistent across independent sources with no competing figure. Stated as fact.

ATTRIBUTED, someone’s own account, on the record. Printed with the name attached: “by Kaplan’s own account”, “Aponte says”. Never upgraded to fact, no matter how often it’s been repeated elsewhere.

REJECTED, no defensible source, no methodology, or contradicted by the people involved. We name these figures so you know why they’re wrong, but we never print them as fact.

The sourcing hierarchy

When sources conflict, this is the order that wins: court and legal records → contemporaneous documents → first-person accounts, on the record → reporting by named journalists in accountable outlets → everything else. A book marketed as nonfiction whose author concedes literary license ranks below all of the above.

What we refuse to do

We don’t print aggregate totals nobody can defend, if no credible figure exists, we say so, because the absence is more honest than a guess. We don’t merge two reports of similar events into one bigger number. When a source gives two conflicting figures, we print the conflict rather than pick the flattering one.

Corrections

If we got something wrong, we fix the page, note the correction on it, and thank the person who caught it. Write to stories@bigwinstories.com with the claim and your source.

Independence

No casino, operator, or gambling brand has any influence over what we publish or how we grade it. Stories are chosen for the record, not for a partner. Gambling should be entertainment, if you’re concerned about yours, visit BeGambleAware.org.

See the method applied across every category on the leaderboard, and in detail in The MIT Blackjack Team: The True Story the Movie Buried.