Standards and corrections
What you can hold us to.
Sourcing
Stories link the sources they draw on. We give more weight to official data such as league results, schedules and on-record club statements than to commentary about them, and a claim resting on a single weak source is labeled as unconfirmed or left out.
Verification
Stories are checked against the sources they cite by a pass separate from the one that assembled them. Work that does not hold up is labeled clearly for the reader or held back. We would rather be slow than wrong.
Lines
Where a game carries a betting line, this desk shows it as it was reported: the spread, the total and the moneyline as one provider published them, with that provider named beside the number. A line is a fact about what a company was offering at a moment, and it is shown for the same reason a kickoff time or a weather reading is shown.
The desk does not make picks, does not advise anyone to bet, does not publish forecasts or win probabilities of its own, and carries no link to a sportsbook. A line that arrives without a provider is not published at all, because an unattributed number would read as this desk's estimate, and this desk does not estimate.
Two things follow from a line being a reading at a moment. When a line moves, the card shows where it opened beside where it is now, both from the same provider, and the opening figure is whatever was published the first time this desk saw the game: the feed does not keep it, so the desk logs it. And once a game is final, the card states whether the favourite covered and whether the total went over. That is arithmetic on the score and on that provider's number, attributed to them, and it is not a judgement on anyone's wager.
Models
A live game may carry a win probability. It is one model's reading, the model is named on the row, and it is shown for the same reason and under the same rule as a line: it is a fact about what that model said at that moment, not a forecast this desk makes. The desk builds no model, tunes none, and averages none together.
It appears only while a game is in play. When a game ends, the model's last reading is a hundred per cent for the team that won, which restates the result as a percentage, so the desk does not show it. And it always names the side it refers to, because a bare percentage beside two team names is the one number on a page that can be read exactly backwards.
Oversight
A human editor-in-chief oversees the desk, can hold or remove anything, and owns the opinion and analysis published here.
Never betting advice
We report events and explain what they may mean. We never advise bets, picks, or wagers of any kind. Nothing on this site is betting, gambling, financial, or legal advice.
Corrections
When we get something wrong, we fix it and say so on the story. If you spot an error, email desk@gocheckmysports.com and we will check it against the source. Corrections are made promptly and noted on the story itself. A correction is a feature of an honest desk, not a failure.
No betting advice.