Victor Chandler could have chosen a more propitious time to get into the business of financial spread-betting. He has a four-month-old baby and is nursing personal losses in gold and mining stocks.
Still, the guiding philosophy of the man is that there is never a bad time to place a bet, nor indeed to accept one. And given current market volatility, a punt on spread-betting promises favourable returns.
Monday sees the launch of Victor Chandler Financials, a joint venture with Worldspreads, a Dublin-based spread-betting company, which will provide the UK portion of Mr Chandler's 1.7m global clients with access to a multitude of financial market products.
"I would have been more worried if we had launched in the latter quarter of last year when most of us who play the market had burned our fingers," says the 57-year-old chairman.
Mr Chandler is perhaps the last of the so-called "gentlemen bookmakers". He took over the business - set up in 1946 by his grandfather - upon the death of his father, Victor senior, in 1974. Unsure about the business, he actually tried to sell it immediately, but eventually stuck with it.
