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

mediahack

MoneySavingExpert as a whole has helped me through one of the darkest periods of my life - changing my financial status from 'dire' to 'improving' in a year. However, the biggest contributor (to the tune of 4K to date) has been through matched betting. The GIOL board has been a revelation, full of great help, techniques and constant clear warnings about sticking to the principles. Nothing is totally risk free in life - even stepping out of your front door in the morning constitutes a risk, as does use of really helpful tools and techniques on other parts of this site like the use of the credit card shuffle and cashback websites, as well as exploiting gambling loopholes. That risk is largely manageable and any pitfalls are very likely to be user error. I agree with many previous commentators, those who want this board closed have a clear vested interest and are wanting to keep the best offers for themselves.

If this discussion has started because of fears regarding the reputation of MoneySavingExpert as a whole, then a completely separate GIOL site should be set up with warnings plastered all over it. However, personally I think this is completely unnecessary and overkill, as the current board is incredibly well policed.

trixter_mick

It would be sad to lose this board i knew about arbing before i found this forum but this place has taught me a hell of alot of new techniques on how to make risk free money ok i don't do all the offers that im not comfortable with but its a great place to learn and im really thankful i found it.

Tatty_

Ignore.......

sparklefrog

It would be a shame to see this board go. I have only recently started MB and this board has been a huge help and a great resource. I have visited MSE for a few years on or off and was aware of this board but didn't really take much notice due to the huge warnings on the forum header, so they do work at warning people off.
I am kicking myself I never looked into this earlier. After spending the last year cutting my budget to the bone and doing surverys(what a waste of time) ebaying and looking for discounts etc etc I have made more in the last few weeks than I made last year. Its a godsend.
There are enough warnings in the forum about risks involved (human error) .But I am strictly doing simple Match bets as I feel too new to attempt what ifs, arbs, dutches etc but I would hope the board would still be here to help me along when I feel ready to attempt these if I so choose too.
We are all adults here and nothing in life is risk free.
MB isnt for everyone, but in other parts of this site you discuss stoozing etc, whats to stop people opening new credit cards to stooze but then running up debts on them and their old cards, because the temptation is there if they have the credit cards when times are hard??
Your cant legislate against stupid but you can reduce the risks by fully explaining pros and cons and the GIOL board does that adequately.

Ghost_2005

Smeagal wrote: »

Agreed, when I started in 2006 the offers where just bet x get x free bet, nice and simple and as risk free as you are going to get, nowadays with there being very few of those offers about you get a lot of +EV offers and 'what if' type offers.

I disagree - on the one hand people are developing ways to exploit loopholes that are indeed complex, but there are still a lot of very lucrative and very simple risk free money making opportunities around. (I can think of a current weekly offer that brings in about £45 - £50 very easily requiring only the use of a mobile phone and the most basic MBing techniques)

NMB

darloscot wrote: »

After all, bookies have limited promotional budgets. If a bookie has a £10k budget and 1000 people take a promo then ther is £10 each. If only 100 know of a promo then there is £100 each. That is the basic rational of people who come over from other forums to click "spam" when a decent new offer or loophole is posted. They like it to be their little secret, and not to share with a wider community.

Wrong. The bookie will not reduce the amount on promotion as more people sign up - the amount on offer will stay the same until the cash runs out or the offer ends.

GIOL has too many people chase a limited amount of promotional cash. An analogy would be to compare MSE GIOL members to a plague of locusts - all take and no give - stripping a bookie bare. When this happens t&cs can be changed retrospectively and anyone with money in the bookie is at risk.

Happened recently with the threads on 'no goalscorer' offers - as soon as an offer is on MSE the bookie culls the ngs odds to a ridiculously level. Had this been an offer at a foreign bookie then there was every possibility that bets could have been cancelled.

Any foreign bookmaker who's sign up appears on GIOL is at risk, as is anyone who has money in there, as the bookie may not be ready for the GIOL effect.

GIOL should remain, but the control on risk needs to be tightened up massively. Risk is not just about the numbers adding up, it needs to include the human factor and business owners changing their minds/t&cs and the effect GIOL has on their business.

chompie

And that's the thing isn't it, there are people who are simply worried about this site's effect on their gain.

This "if a loophole is exposed to the masses then it may be closed" mentality is responsible for many a spam marking...

Namechanger

Why would you want to close down the best section of MSE? Just silly.

Red_Joker

Looks to me like MSE Martin has already decided to close GIOL and this consultation is a sham. Everyone should remember that the value of a forum is in its posters. We could all walk out whenever we like and set up a 'GIOL in exile' elsewhere and leave Martin to wring his hands over his 'Won't somebody please think of the children?' dilemma.

We shouldn't be thinking 'What have we done wrong? How can we convince MSE to keep GIOL open?' We should be thinking 'Would another forum value us more and would they do a better job of dealing with the trolls who attack us?' The answers to those questions are Yes and Yes.

waptext

if anything you should create another forum , one for the easy stuff and one for the more complex stuff ..