'Consultation over the Gambling Introductory Offer Loopholes board' blog discussion

michaels

Firstly I'd like to say JM and the other board guides before her have been spot on in very difficult circumstances.

The board self polices very well in my opinion, rather like for example the mortgage board where posters can be given very bad and potentially £1000s costing poor advice but will also get good advice from other posters.

Martin would not hope to claim that every other post on every other board is perfect and does not cause any risk. Why is this one different?

thelawnet

meher wrote: »

Essentially what I meant is that, I'm only assuming btw, if the board has to run smoothly, it needs someone with expertise to keep it as risk free as it could practically get. And my guess is it would cost. A lot. Time, money and human resource for the expertise. I'm not entirely sure if they need to be obliged to be equipped with all of that when gambling is not the highlight of mse, but that's just my point of view.

Well yes.

The fact is a gambling website of this kind requires at least two, maybe more, moderators, to be truly 'under control'. (One isn't enough for 365 day coverage)

There aren't many gambling forums that can pay two salaries, and those that do are plastered with banners and affiliate links, which does compromise independence in my experience.

So?Sorry, may be you misunderstand me, I didn't speak about charging anyone. Simply use of affiliate links, for instance, to generate revenue so that everyone could have their way. That was just a passing thought.

A problem with affiliate links is that they rely, in the long run, on both parties making a profit. So for every £1 paid out in commission, the site needs to make about £3 in gross profit. That gross profit represents players, 'money savers', losing money.

In the context of a money-saving site, there is a conflict between gambling affiliates and saving/earning money. If MSE receives its affiliate report showing that players sent to Casino X lost £10k last month, while that's money going into Martin's pocket, it should cause him some discomfort.

While this site gets plenty of affiliate payments, there is an unambiguous utility in say car insurance, a new credit card, or even online shopping. Unfortunately 'money savers' losing money to online gambling merchants isn't really defensible on any level for a site like this.

A business from which users benefit on a social level is socialist, in fact dynamic considering how resourceful it is and all for free, imo. I don't think will never agree on this so shall we leave it at it?

Well, I won't bother dispute your categorisation any further, but, in case anyone's confused about what socialism is, here's a definition from Wikipedia

'Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership or control of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy'

Clause IV of the Labour Party's constitution, comitting the party to nationalisation of private enterprise, and dumped by Blair in 1995, could be seen as socialist:

'To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service.'

innovate

Time for GIOL to be laid to rest. It's been superb but so many parameters have changed now, so it's no longer suitable for MSE.

Those who want to still make money out of this know how to do it, and/or where to go for help/advice etc.

Newbies will find it very hard to make much more than a couple of hundreds from GIOL now - - might still be of interest to some, but it's not the gravy train it used to be.

All the best to any newbies and recent starters, and anyone else, though!

r5cwgtt

jobbingmusician wrote: »

I may have been the cause of some of the concern from the MSE team about complex offers. Do the GIOL members remember a recent thread about some form of spread betting/trading? I remember that the technique recommended by those who advocated its risk-freeness was to open trades and close them immediately.

As I posted on the thread, I felt torn. I don't 'do' spread betting. Half the posters on the thread were saying it was risk free, the other half that it wasn't, so I said I'd ask MSE Towers for advice. Sounds like they didn't know either!

It also sounds, from previous posts on the closure discussion threads, as if spread betting should be on the stocks and shares board. That in itself might help the GIOL board.

So we have the situation where I was unable to evaluate the risk of an offer, and MSE Towers admit that they sometimes also struggle. The interesting thing about this particular offer is that it had nothing to do with gambling - it was a trading and shares offer. FAR more socially acceptable than that nasty 'g' word! And, as other posters have pointed out since, spread betting and shares loopholes should actually be on the stocks and shares board. So suddenly we have another board which shares the same problem that Martin has identified with GIOL, in having complex offers which the MSE team cannot evaluate. Does this progress the analysis of the problem in any way?

What I tend to do at the moment is to lock doubtful threads and invite people to PM me if they disagree. In fact the thread in question had been locked and re-opened before I asked the MSE team for advice. Other threads have been locked in the past, but have now been 'cracked' by clever people on the forum and can now be done in a risk free way. An example of this would be the 'what if' offers where the two positions are not contingent: both can happen. For years the logical amongst us recommended avoiding these offers, but more recently a clever poster has produced a spreadsheet which produces a small profit on these offers if the odds are favourable.

There are two ways in which non risk free (NRF) offers sneak through on this forum.

1. Because the BG doesn’t spot them, evaluates them wrongly, or doesn’t understand them.
2. Because the offers themselves are RF but participants don’t understand them and so do them wrongly, making them NRF.

A type 1 error is policed very well by other forum members, who will call loudly for the thread to be locked. The only problem occurs when there is disagreement about this, and there seems to be a clear decision on this thread that people would rather the BG locked too many threads rather than too few.

A type 2 error is more difficult to avoid, and raises the question to what degree we should be prepared to protect people from their own stupidity. It would, however, be solved by the suggestion which has been mooted several times of having an open board for the most simple introductory offers, and a more advanced locked sub board for those who had registered and could demonstrate that they understood the basics.

None of this address the PRS ABOMINATION that occurred 100% because of this forum.

The fact so called experienced posters made I am sure substantial money on RAFS by ramping this bunch of crooks is appalling.

This bookmaker was never risk free and that was obvious to many many experience advantage players months before it got shut down on here.

apps4u

The results of the official Poll on the GIOL board is:

Leave alone 62 vs To change it 6.

Now of course you may do as you wish, but you can see how the board members feel.

meher

Achilles2000 wrote: »

It amazes how many posters names I do not recognise in this thread who either do not actually participate in Mbing

as a first you could be wrong but I'm not obliged to go into details - I'm only bemused some people aren't confident enough and feel threatened by views outside of their comfort zone

second, whilst the regulars of that board might know the undercurrents, they thankfully have no monopoly over opinion to assessment to risks, legality or management issues and the forum team is astute enough to recognise it and post it here instead of posting it on that part of the board

And for the record, I've advocated closing down nowhere; if only wish the opposite because I really trust in the site's immense potential. I've no opinion either way, just meaning to look at some blind spots.

@thelawnet, thanks, I apprciate your thoughts but you did put a little twist to my original post - I said socialist inclinations and you reworded it as socialist. Allow me to redefine socialsim on another thread, anothr day.

schiff

thelawnet wrote: »

The fact is a gambling website of this kind requires at least two, maybe more, moderators, to be truly 'under control'. (One isn't enough for 365 day coverage)

There aren't many gambling forums that can pay two salaries, and those that do are plastered with banners and affiliate links, which does compromise independence in my experience.
While this site gets plenty of affiliate payments, there is an unambiguous utility in say car insurance, a new credit card, or even online shopping. Unfortunately 'money savers' losing money to online gambling merchants isn't really defensible on any level for a site like this.

The split between the people who understand MB and those who don't just goes on and on. GIOL is not a gambling website/forum as the above describes it. And I don't know where 'money savers losing money to online gambling merchants' comes from. I could almost guarantee that of the people giving MB a try, 99.5% come out with a profit, and that's probably conservative.

I know it would seem odd but if only people who understood MB were able to contribute to this debate, it would be ten times more focused.

schiff

r5cwgtt wrote: »

None of this address the PRS ABOMINATION that occurred 100% because of this forum.

The fact so called experienced posters made I am sure substantial money on RAFS by ramping this bunch of crooks is appalling.

This bookmaker was never risk free and that was obvious to many many experience advantage players months before it got shut down on here.

This is really what it's all about, isn't it. Nobody has brought up anything else other than the FGS fiasco.

No doubt you have the proof of 'substantial money'. Of course you have.

chompie

That's what it boils down to.

Gambling is in the title, and (some) people cannot see beyond that and the connotations in their mind...

tobiascurious

schiff wrote: »

This is really what it's all about, isn't it. Nobody has brought up anything else other than the FGS fiasco.

To be honest I was tempted to trade on Voler La Vedette between exchanges! Luckily I didn't, but that could have been another fiasco if someone had tipped it on the "no chat just tips" thread!!!

For anyone who doesn't know, betfair voided the whole horse race whereas the other exchanges didn't. Inexperienced arbers got their fingers burned on it which appeared on the face of it to be risk free because it was possible to back and lay the same horse for guaranteed profit.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/horseracing/8981353/Betfair-faces-backlash-after-in-running-fiasco-over-Leopardstown-Christmas-Hurdle.html