City Traders Bet on the Number of G20 Demonstrators Arrested, Injured or Killed
April 2nd, 2009Via: Guardian:
At Coq D’Argent, the restaurant atop the distinctive salmon coloured building at Number One Poultry, adjacent to Bank underground station, the bankers appeared slightly drunk on the excitement of the protests down below; basking in the sunshine, ordering wine and necking oysters.
Two traders based in an office opposite RBS on Bishopsgate said they had walked across the City “to have a nice lunch and chill out”. Sipping coffee after three courses and a few Marlboro Lights, they were angry that the police didn’t seem to be making any arrests: “Its kicking off over in Bishopsgate”, they said. “The demonstrators are goading the police and hitting them with sticks, but they are just letting them. They aren’t arresting anyone.”
And these two wanted to see the long arm of the law carting a few protesters away – because they had a financial interest in arrests. “I’ll make money if they arrest more than 140”, he said. Traders, he explained were putting spread bets on the number of arrests – with the quoted spread on Bloomberg at 130-140. They were also paying out on deaths and if more than 20 demonstrators are injured by horse charges.
The riots, they said, were only a minor inconvenience: “We’ve been in this morning, made a lot of money and now are chilling out”.
A waiter said the restaurant was busier than usual. One diner, Tim Robertson from the financial PR firm Cardew, admitted he had travelled in from Trafalgar Square to have lunch there in the hope of getting a glimpse of what was going on, although the restaurant had disappointingly closed the part of the terrace that would have given a birds eye view. You couldn’t quite forget what was happening though, the constant drone of helicopters competing with the increasingly noisy bankers.
