The Hall and Its Writers

Every arcade has a few regulars who know where each machine stands and which ones are worth a look. Saengerhalle has three, and they write under pen names. This page introduces them and explains how an article finds its way onto the site.

The three regulars

Wynna Castellane — slots and game tech

Wynna reads slot help screens the way other people read menus: slowly, with interest, and with a habit of asking what a word really means. She writes most of our pieces on reel mechanics, bonus features and the technology behind online games, from HTML5 to the way a new title is put together and tested. Her rule: if a feature cannot be explained in a short paragraph, the explanation is not finished yet.

Corvo Pelleway — table games and poker

Corvo looks after the felt side of the hall. He writes about the rules of games such as fan-tan and Dragon Tiger, and about poker formats including Hold'em and Omaha. He likes worked examples with made-up hands and round numbers, and he dislikes any article that treats a scoreboard of past results as a guide to the future.

Tansy Drummel — editor

Tansy edits every article before it goes up, and she writes most of our pieces on budgets, session limits and keeping play social and light. She keeps a red pen ready for three things: promises of winnings, numbers without a source and missing reminders about age and local law.

None of the three holds a professional qualification in gambling, law or health, and none of us pretends to. We are enthusiasts who read carefully and write plainly.

What we write about

The archive is split into five halls: Slots, Tips and Advice, Online Poker, Table Games and Game Tech. Each article tries to answer a single question well, such as how fan-tan is settled or why browser slots no longer need plugins.

How an article is made

1. A question comes in. It might be from a reader email, from something one of us noticed in a game, or from a gap in the archive.
2. Primary sources first. The writer reads the game's own rules, help screens and published operator terms before anything else. Forum chatter and rumours are not sources.
3. A plain draft. One topic, everyday words, and examples with clearly invented amounts rather than real-looking figures.
4. A second pair of eyes. Another team member checks each claim against the source and questions anything that sounds too confident.
5. The editor's pass. Tansy removes anything that reads like a promise and makes sure the 18+ and local-law line is in place.

What we leave out

We do not publish predictions, "hot" or "cold" machine lists, betting systems or invented statistics. We do not rank operators by how much they might pay. When a fact depends on a particular game or casino, we say so and send you to the source. If we get something wrong anyway, When We Fix Things explains how corrections work, and our inbox is listed on Ring the Bell.