The Desk Behind the Odds

Honey Creeper is written by a small group working under pen names. We use pen names because an article should stand on its reasoning rather than on who wrote it, and because none of us wants to be mistaken for an authority with titles we do not hold. None of us is a lawyer, a regulator or a professional gambler. We are readers who like to take a game apart until its rules and its price are clear, and then write that down as plainly as we can.

Four writers, four corners of the site

Faustine

Covers slots: random number generators, return to player, volatility and the small print of bonus features. Faustine's habit is to open a game's information screen before anything else, and most of her articles begin there.

Emrys

Writes about blackjack and baccarat. Emrys works through drawing rules and payouts by hand, with a deck of cards on the desk, and is the reason our table-game articles always show where the house edge comes from.

Lucasta

Looks after pai gow poker, sic bo and our coverage of online play in Indonesia, Malaysia and South Korea. Lucasta keeps track of how rules and laws differ from one country to the next and makes sure the articles say so.

Caradoc

Edits everything before it goes up. Caradoc rechecks figures, strikes out anything that sounds like a promise and makes sure each article carries its reminder about age limits and local rules.

How we split the work

Each article has one writer and one editor, and the two are never the same person. The writer drafts the piece and lists where each rule and figure came from; the editor works through that list, reads the piece the way a newcomer would and sends back anything unclear. When the two disagree, the more cautious wording is the one that gets published.

What we will not do

• Claim qualifications, licences or insider knowledge we do not have.
• Tell anyone how to win, or present gambling as a way to earn.
• Publish figures we cannot trace back to the rules of a game or to simple arithmetic.
• Write about a game without stating what it costs the player over time.

Reaching one of us

All messages arrive in one shared inbox. If you want a particular writer to see your note, mention the name in the first line and it will be passed on. You can write to us through the contact page, read more about the site on the about page or see the rules we hold ourselves to in our editorial standards.