Since we got a few new people and even some of the older people who do not know about this and almost no info on the forums about this, which is such a vital part of the Chinese Wow Raiding Experience I thought to add this:

COMPREHENSIVE GOLD RAID GUIDE

What Gold Raids are is that they are raids made of generally 20 highly equipped players (ilvl 560+ usually) who will "work" (gongzuo/gongren), for the 5 "boss" (laoban), in a 25man raid (no 10 man Graids). Due to those highly geared players they do not need most of the items that drop and thus they will "auction off" the items to those 5 laoban who are lowly geared or who might need specific items for gold. So for example a 25 normal difficulty Immerseus (first boss in SoO) can drop a total of 6 items and the raid leader (RL) will be a master looter who will auction off those items at a preconfirmed price at a certain time of the raid (usually at a high downtime boss such as norushen's interactive dialogue time) or at the end of the raid. This is basically the economical cycle of Chinese Wow, meaning people mostly earn their money doing Gold Raids. Where they spent their money you might ask as they could get 10-30k gold per one session is a good question. If you have alts you basically spent the money on gearing your alts and thus return the money back into the circle. If you do not have alts, they tend to spend it on mounts, or time cards (so in the end they play this game for free, which I think is part of their major motivation of doing the raids even when they are ilvl 580.) 15 RMB Timecards for example go for 8-9k Gold and 30RMB for 18-19k Gold, so essentially doing on full Graid you could buy one of those time cards without ever spending any more money on the game as long as your sufficient geared to become a worker.

Touts for those G Raids are common on the World chats so just look for it if your interested. They tend to be SoO Bosses 1-8 and 9-13 with NCH (Garrosh) being a separate raid. NCH also tends to have a "entry fee" if your a Laoban or if you have not completed NCH at least once on any of your toon in a 25man as you will get an achievement and the RL will charge you for getting this achievement (if your an alt and you can link this the "Ahead of the Curve: Garrosh Hellscream 25man" achievement to the RL he might waive the fee). Fees can be 10-30k, with 20k the norm. This does not count towards a deposit for gear its just for being able to join the NCH raid whether gear for you drops or not.

Also before you join make sure you understand every Acronym/Abbrevation Chinese people use, make sure you have YY, which is the Chinese version of Vent/Teamspeak, and hopefully understand a bit of Chinese, especially when they scream at you doing certain stuff. As a laoban you can pretty much avoid all that and just tag along even without going on YY.

Bonus loot rolls work in Gold Raids as any normal raid, but some people will frown on you or even kick you if you do not buy items, therefore its generally advised that you first check whether the item you want has dropped before you bonus loot on any boss if your a laoban, for example if the Immerseus Purified Bindings dropped and your the only caster dps laoban and you do not have this trinket they expect you to buy it and might kick you if you  bonus roll this item and thus "waste" the trinket as most workers will likely have this trinket already.

Laoban:

As a laoban you do not have to do anything, essentially you can be naked and just die at the start of the fight, or you can participate along the fight, just do not expect to be praised or paid as the workers. Sometimes they group will ask you to help them certain things such as battle res, blood lust, help man the tower cannon at Galakras, help heal/do defensive buffs at Thok (especially when your a Holy Paladin), but generally laobans can just die, in fact in certain bosses your expected to die immediately as you might harm the raid if your alive if you do not understand the certain boss mechanics. When the time comes to auction off loot, the RL will link the item in the chat with a number beside it such as [Purified Bindings of Immerseus] 1, 1w, 10. This means that this item will cost 10000 gold, as 1 generally in this situation will not mean 1000 but 10000. Some will type 1w (w for 万 ten-thousand) and very rarely 10, as we do in the English language. If you want to bid on this item you will have to simply type a 1, first come first serve, meaning if someone typed a 1 before you and you want this item you have to raise the bid (the minimum increase of bids are generally in 5k so you can type 1.5 or 15) or you can pass denoted by a simple P. This is the same in all gold raids but some gold raids have a different price setting more info below. Once you won the auction you can go to the RL to trade the item and give him the gold.

A thing to note for as a Laoban is that you do not have competition. Group 5 of a raid is generally reserved for laoban, so check out those guys first. Generally you want to see all 5 different armor classes there. So if you a mage you do not want to see any other mage/priest/warlock in group 5 as they might compete with you and thus drive up the prices of gear. Sometimes it can be that if your a DPS DK (Frost/Unholy) they will get another Plate (War/DK/Pally) but who will not buy DPS gear but buy the Plate healing/tank gear that drops. Just make sure with the RL that this is the case. This preferential treatment will however generally only be given at the 5/1/+0.5 raids where everything is 5000,10000 or 15000.

Worker:

If you plan to work make sure you understand all the boss mechanics and your class requirements of each boss as Chinese people aren't patient with an inexperienced Gold Worker. Of course that is if you meet the ilvl requirements, because if you don't even if they do not kick you right away, you will not receive part of the loot share. The loot share is generally that you have to attain 60% of the #1 DPS in your DPS meter such as Skadi or Recount. If you have that you get gold. If you don't you might or you might not get gold it depends on the RL. Healers and Tanks generally get a full share, unless otherwise specified, which is rather rare. If you do not finish the full raid to the end boss or when its called to end by the RL due to time or wipes, you do not get a share, so plan ahead. Use buffs such as flask and food to get an edge as well. The #1 DPS and healer tend to get a bonus of the share, but as they are often dominated by ilvl 580+ players its tough. At the end of the raid he will announce the full DPS meter and start calculating all the income from auctioned off gear. Sometimes at this point he will sell gear that no one bought at a lower price if everyone agrees. If you qualify for gold you can trade the RL when he announces the final tally and divides it among all the qualified workers and receive your share.

As a worker to look out for are high gear locks and hunters, as they can AOE damage alot and thus you will fall behind on DPS. Just see whether you can make the cut by checking out a few of the ilvls of those guys, if there are alot you might want to switch the Graid. Sometimes they wont start counting the DPS, for example at 9-13, your first fight will be Malkorok, alot of Graids do not count this fight and start counting the DPS at Spoils of Pandaria, as they want you to focus on the Imploding Energy (the purple damaging aoe) and not on just outdpsing everyone.


Common Prices and Info:

25PTAG G团 (25 Man Normal Difficulty SoO) 3/5/7.  Means the items are 3000, 5000 and 7000. which generally means that if the bids go up by 2000 if there's competition on a certain item. Warforged is usually 7000. This is a very rare Gold Raid as the prices are fairly low.

Weapon Trinkets Tier Sets: 5000
Everything Else: 3000
Warforged: 7000
Average Gold to be Laoban: 20k-50k
Average gold you could earn per session: 10k
Average ilvl you need to work: 555, 200kish DPS


25PTAG G 团(25 Man Normal Difficulty SoO) 5/1/+0.5. Means all items are 5000,10000 and any WARFORGED item is an extra 5000. Increase bids are 5000.

Weapon Trinkets Tier Sets Necklace (Sometimes Rings): 10000
Everything Else: 5000
Warforged: 15000
Average Gold to be Laoban: 100k-300k
Average gold you could earn per session: 20-50k
Average ilvl you need to work: 565, 250kish DPS


25PTAG 内销(Neixiao) (25 Man Normal Difficulty SoO) 3/5 +2. Means the items are 3000 and 5000 and increase by 2000. Warforged is usually at 5000. Neixiao means that theres generally no laoban, but 25 lower geared "workers" so basically everyone normal people who need gear, ilevel are around 545-555, wheres a pure gold raid almost everyone is fully geared except the laobans. This is the cheapest method of gearing up but not as popular as G raids as wipes are more common, progress is slower. Sometimes a few high ilvls will be in the mix to earn the money that comes from these auctions as they will be a guaranteed #1 DPS. Neixiao has also more potential competition so prices in the end might be pushed up so much that they are no different to G Raids so make sure u check out some of your competitions gear to evaluate who might compete with you. But Neixiao players generally tend to lack the huge amount of gold that a laoban in G raid brings.

Weapon Trinkets Tier Sets: 5000
Everything else: 3000
Warforged: 5000
Average gold per player: 10-30k
Average earning per session: 10k
Average ilvl you need to work: 540-555, 180Kish DPS

Nice guide!
I knew some of the stuff but neverr participated