TGT Premium Membership - Questions / Feedback thread

[TearsOfJenny]

I've been reading a lot about this forum on MSE, but am wary of paying the 28GBP premium membership fee without knowing what added value it may give me.
(I joined in the Summer, but have never posted, hence I was not offered free membership.)

Would it be possible to offer a trial period for free or minimal cost, to allow new users to decide whether they think it is worth the 28GBP?

Alternatively, you could offer a shorter membership than 25 years (effectively lifetime) for a lower cost?

[bella]

Sorry, but the £28.00 joining fee is non-negotiable and for the foreseeable future will remain as such..

[Grandthrax]

Surely if you were a member over the Summer you will already have a good idea what on offer in the premium member areas?

The content is well worth £28, especially if you're nominally using mse.

It's probably worth £28 just to get access to the tgt fivers.

hope to hear more from you in the forum!

[zenmaster]

I stick by what i have been saying in chat Andy needs the subscription fee to pay for his Russian mail order bride! He's smart though and knows the current membership wont pay for it and is picking on the newbies.

In all seriousness what you have been told on mse is pretty much 100% true, so far in that thread only 2 people have said anything negative, one who has never been here and another who claims he was banned but doesn't say what he did to get that ban.

If you dont mind taking a bit more risk then you can make more money. I believe you should still be able to access this forum http://www.thegamblingtimes.com/boar...ndy-right.html check out the thread for some info on a beginners experience of riskier casino offers.

Thats not to say this forum is a gold mine of information it is not. However the community spirit here if you take part and interact opens doors to you, the members here have a lot of information to share and that is the most valuable thing of all. Its an absolute bonus that everyone is so friendly and willing to help each other out.

IMO instant chat is where its at, the ability to ask a question and get an answer quickly is very important, if you dont have time to interact with others a few times a week or post experiences on the threads for offers then it might not be the place for you.

An few example's of where chat was important for a few people in recent weeks.

Example 1 someone had a rule 4 happen 30 minutes before the race started they had backed but not layed they had never done the calculation before so over the next 15-20 minutes 2-3 people worked it out with that person how much they should lay.
Example 2 someone had messed up a bet it had drifted and they overlayed it they wanted to know how much they should back to even out the loss, they got the answer from 3 people within 5 minutes.
Example 3 lots of people have been asking questions like is this dutch a matched bet at this website? they often get someone who knows dutching inside out answering within minutes.

There are a lot of TGT fivers available for bookies and casino's that you will not get at most cashback sites, and the help you can get with rogue and non paying books is very useful if you ever find yourself in that position.

Only you can decide if its right to pay the subscription.

[slim]

The chat certainly is useful... I'm sure Mickey would agree

He had a very large bet on long odds unmatched on an NFL Halftime market and the game had gone live. Try finding that market somewhere -- live betting on NFL halftime result!

Well that's what 3-4 of us did when he came onto chat and Andy DID find it at Ladbrokes and Mickey was able to match out. Saved him literally hundreds of pounds.

Offering a free or low cost trial has been discussed and for the time being it won't be happening, as bella already said.

[altec_09]

Hi,

I'm not a new member and it's been mentioned on MSE that as I had signed up before you bought the £28 membership charge in I shouldn't have to pay it to view the Casino Forum section.

Any help would be appreciated as I'm really looking at exploiting more avenues than just pure MB.

Best wishes,

Altec.

[Andy]

Hello

I'm not a new member and it's been mentioned on MSE that as I had signed up before you bought the £28 membership charge in I shouldn't have to pay it to view the Casino Forum section.

Everybody who had made a post in the last twelve months was upgraded for free. There is more to being a Premium member than just the forum but that is one of the most popular/tangible features.

I hope that clears it up. All the best, Andy.

[munk]

Hi,

I'm not a new member and it's been mentioned on MSE that as I had signed up before you bought the £28 membership charge in I shouldn't have to pay it to view the Casino Forum section.

Any help would be appreciated as I'm really looking at exploiting more avenues than just pure MB.

Best wishes,

Altec.

The free upgrade was for those people that were active members on the forum before November 2009. Unfortunately you weren't active prior to November 2009 and so your account was not upgraded automatically.

[Fella]

The free upgrade was for those people that were active members on the forum before November 2009. Unfortunately you weren't active prior to November 2009 and so your account was not upgraded automatically.

It's not my place to say since I have no involvement with the site, but I'd actually prefer the fee to be a recurring yearly thing, perhaps refundable depending on the contribution (chat? posts? ? manual assessment?) of each user. (which may or may not be even possible).

But I'd certainly be happy to pay if it meant the forum was 100% useful contributors & zero percent lurkers/people who never contribute. IMO there is no excuse for the latter behaviour, everyone has something useful they could tell the rest of us if they chose to, & probably a lot more than just one thing. Those who choose never to do so are leeches & I have no time whatsoever for that.

cheers
Fella

[musicbox]

It's not my place to say since I have no involvement with the site, but I'd actually prefer the fee to be a recurring yearly thing, perhaps refundable depending on the contribution (chat? posts? ? manual assessment?) of each user. (which may or may not be even possible).

But I'd certainly be happy to pay if it meant the forum was 100% useful contributors & zero percent lurkers/people who never contribute. IMO there is no excuse for the latter behaviour, everyone has something useful they could tell the rest of us if they chose to, & probably a lot more than just one thing. Those who choose never to do so are leeches & I have no time whatsoever for that.

cheers
Fella

RE: lurking... if you usually lurk at sites because you're used to seeing questions jumped on and you're concerned about joining in, please don't feel that way here. And if it's not a fear of being jumped on, maybe it's a fear of having a different view. Well, if you think you can't air a view, of course you can - just do it respectfully rather than appear to want to start a fight. (There's only one person who wins in an internet fight and that's me - regardless of whether it has anything to do with me... I'M THE DADDY.) Seriously though, your view may differ from others views but considering even Nitro got to air his view (and it's still there for all to see) then no-one should feel they can't say what they want. (Tip of the day... just don't keep reposting that view on every single thread you join in with!)

Again, if you're unsure of forum protocol, don't worry. If you post in the "wrong" section, a moderator will move it to the right place or merge it with an existing thread - it's not a big deal and hopefully it's apparent that moderating for us isn't a chore. No-one will tell you your punishment for posting in the wrong place is a face-to-face freestyle rap battle with a heavily armed Blazin' Squad. You might see people recommend using the search/tag facilities or continuing the topic in another thread but it will be done so politely. It's true there are a few people who don't have a right to post at this site and that is because their involvement was less useful than the year-long subscription to Tiger Woods' golf magazine I just bought as a Christmas present for my ultra-Christian friend.

Anyway, I appreciate that not everyone wants to chat or feels comfortable getting involved trying to advise or help especially if they're not too sure on something themselves. But can I just say there is one thing that every single user can do to contribute to the community? And it has nothing to do with personality and nothing to do with your level of experience: FEEDBACK!

If you've just spoken to a lovely CS person who sorted out a problem, if you just got paid four figures in the hour, if you just had your limits cut after two bets, then these are easy things to convey in the particular thread. The two minutes it takes to state an experience can help provide information to other users.

If experiences are quite different to the review we have on the bookmaker in the Bookmakers section, please write a short review of your experience so we can keep as up-to-date as possible. No-one should rely on reviews, mainly because they are often outdated on any sites out there, but frequent contributions in this regard can keep TGT as relevant as realistically possible and that's in your interest and everyone else's too. A high number of players providing reports will contribute to probably the most relevant guide out there: we all contribute = we all benefit.

It would be nice to think this ethos could be on every level but I think in reality it's very hard to achieve because not every one wants the same thing out of a site. Some contribute with humour, some with techniques and offers - I find them all valid because it's not good to sit there deadpan for four hours and it's a bit more healthy to at least find something someone wrote funny to keep you a bit sane at least! Some do this for a living, some might log in a few times a week, their levels of giving and taking will never likely find a middle ground to say "that's an acceptable level of giving back". If it was a yearly payment (retrievable by contribution) it becomes incredibly hard to evaluate contribution - number of posts can be skewed, number of thanks can be skewed, people become friendly with one another so are more likely to respond favourably to their input etcetc.

Plus, when we discussed the implementation of the charge for new members, we lost existing members who had not contributed to make sure no 100% lurker could see the bonus sections. Ok, so we may have lurkers who posted a handful of times but they cannot now grow in number without first contributing to the site with a payment - a payment which can go into the site for the future. Plus, you can only win a star opost £10 free bet if you post... Srh got £100 free bet for chatting most on the chat (10k chats or something) and so we still have methods of picking out contributions which should encourage getting involved and rewarding those who do. Even if that is insignificant to the value a lurker can get from the bonus sections, it's still something I think.