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By Noah Rafkin, Bonus Bandit Research · Last revised
This is the operating manual: how an operator ends up on Bonus Bandit, how it gets a score, what happens when someone disputes that score, and who is accountable for the call. It sits next to two companion documents — the editorial standards, which state the principles we hold ourselves to, and the review methodology and Trust Score rubric, which show the math. This page is the process between them.
Coverage is editor-decided and market-driven, not pay-to-play. We add an operator to the catalog because readers are likely to encounter it — it advertises, ranks, launches, or shows up in the sweepstakes and bonus markets we track — not because it asked to be listed or offered to pay. No operator can buy its way onto the site, and none can buy its way off after a poor showing.
Once an operator is in the catalog, it is scored on the same published rubric as every other operator in its category. There is no separate "premium" treatment for partners and no penalty for operators we have no relationship with. Some operators appear in the Trust Score leaderboard but do not yet have a full review; that reflects how far our first-hand testing has gotten, not a commercial decision.
Every rating combines the same ingredients: the operator's own published terms, our first-hand redemption and identity-verification (KYC) testing, documented payout timing, and named public-complaint data. Those feed a fixed, weighted set of factors — the full breakdown is in the Trust Score rubric, and the review-page standard is in the methodology. We don't hand-tune a score to a conclusion: the rubric runs the same way for an operator we earn nothing from and one we do.
Where evidence is thin, we say so and lower the stated confidence rather than guessing. Untested operators are never presented as tested, and figures that go stale (bonus amounts, redemption minimums, payout windows) carry a verification date so readers can judge freshness.
Bonus Bandit earns referral commissions on some signups. That revenue is walled off from scoring entirely: there is no affiliate weighting anywhere in the rubric, and a paid relationship cannot raise a rank, soften a caveat, or remove a flagged terms-of-service clause. When a commercial relationship and an unflattering finding collide, the finding stays on the page. The full money-and-independence statement is in our editorial standards, and every paid link is disclosed under our affiliate disclosure.
Anyone — a reader or an operator — can challenge a rating. The process is deliberately simple and evidence-first:
We get things wrong, and offers go stale. When we learn of an error, we fix it promptly. For any change that affects a score, a rank, or a material claim, we note what changed so the record stays honest rather than quietly editing history. Smaller fixes (typos, broken links, formatting) are made without a note. To report something inaccurate or out of date, email noah.rafkin@bonusbandit.win with the page URL and the detail; we typically respond within 1–2 business days.
Bonus Bandit is an independent project operated as a sole proprietorship by Noah Rafkin in Boulder, Colorado. As of this revision, Noah is the sole author and editor: there are no outside paid contributors and no guest-posted, sponsored, or syndicated articles. If that ever changes, every contributor will be named and any sponsored or paid placement will be labeled as such before you read a word of it.
We build and run software to collect data at scale — the catalog pipeline and the Beat the Spin research extension — but editorial judgment, scoring decisions, and published conclusions are made and signed off by a human. We are not an operator: we do not run a casino, sportsbook, or sweepstakes platform, and we do not take bets.
Read the principles in the editorial standards, the scoring math in the methodology and Trust Score rubric, the money relationships in the affiliate disclosure, or reach a human through contact.