Instead, the unassuming 32-year old accountant employed by engineering firm Charter, used the cash to feed an online gambling addiction. Most of the money was squandered on wrong-headed assumptions about the future performance of the FTSE and Nasdaq share indices.

Chu may be the first rogue gambler to be caught out by spiralling debts, but he will surely not be the last.

Shares of companies that own Internet gambling sites have soared in the past year as broadband and wireless networks encourage more users online and Web-based casinos shed their sleazy reputation.

About 4 percent of British adults who have access to the Internet have gambled online in the past two years, according to figures published by the Gaming Board for Great Britain, which regulates UK casinos. In the US, About three per cent of people acknowledge gambling online at work, vs. two per cent in 2003, according to a survey by Harris Interactive last year.

In many ways, online gambling is not much different to financial market trading. Spread betters gambling on the direction of the FTSE or changes in the weather are taking equivalent punts to derivatives dealers. Electronic gambling dens like Betfair match buyers and sellers in much the same way as crossing networks or City brokers. It's no coincidence that Betfair was co-founded by a former derivatives pricing modeler and JPMorgan vice president.

This blurring of boundaries can only continue. Only this week, UK investment site Interactive Investor announced a partnership with FinSpreads to offer spread betting opportunities to its 1.4 million account holders.

Tomás Carruthers, CEO of Interactive Investor says: "Given the sophisticated and demanding nature of our users, it is the logical next step in the continuing development of our offer to investors, sitting well alongside our award-winning share trading and CFD services."

In a recent pamphlet from UK think-tank the Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation (CSFI), consultant Michael Mainelli and Sam Dibb – a former accountant turned semi-professional gambler – explore emerging cross-over opportunities and the probability of market entry by corporates and financial services firms. Gambling products, they point out, offer better access to consumer markets, lower transaction costs and, in some cases, friendlier tax and regulatory environments.

"We believe it is likely that some corporates will overcome concerns about the perceived probity of betting and look to exploit the opportunities for better and cheaper risk management," they argue. "Very possibly (an even money chance) other financial products will also utilise betting as a mechanism to exchange and sell risk. There are clear opportunities in betting on house prices or the weather. Where financial products lead, investment strategies are quite likely to follow."

In the future, they suggest, the professional gambler will be just as socially respectable as brokers or investment bankers.

Risk managers take note. You may know your exposures on the dealing desk, but do you know what’s happening in your head trader’s spread betting account? Is it any of your business? As the case of Charter shows, it very soon could be.