Richard Glynn sleeps four hours a night. In the remaining 20, the Oxford graduate makes a fortune dreaming up outlandish bets for sports fans.
Not bad, is it?" asks Richard Glynn rhetorically. The chief executive of Sporting Index, the company that dominates one of the fastest growing sectors of the explosively expanding world of gambling and gaming, is looking down from a corporate box full of guests he has been working all day like a magician with a yo-yo.
There's quite a pecking order at the Cheltenham horse racing festival, and, undoubtedly, Glynn's firm has the best corporate box. We are on the top tier of the main stand, in almost perfect alignment with the winning post. No, Mr Glynn, it's not bad at all.
So how has Sporting Index grabbed the emperor's seat at the circus? It's partly because Glynn's company operates at the crossroads between business and sport - Glynn refers to his operation as "the monetisation of passion" - so the horsey jamboree is Sporting Index's natural territory.
It's also because Glynn, whose burly, athletic frame hints at past glories as a hooker for Oxford University's rugby team, is a ferocious competitor. If there's a top box to entertain in, then Glynn and Sporting Index will have it.
"We have 70 per cent of the market in sports spread betting in this country, and I will protect that position aggressively, like an 800lb Silverback in the jungle," he says.
Spread betting, by the way, allows punters to make or lose money on a variable. If, for example, you fancy the England cricket team will make at least 350 runs in an innings, and Sporting Index thinks it will make 280 (which will be presented to you as a spread of 275-285), you buy the spread at so much a point. A £10 bet means you would make £10 for every run scored over 285.
Despite a university education at St Edmund's Hall, Oxford, and an early career that led to qualification with the City law firm SJ Berwin, Glynn is an unreconstructed Northern boy. He is a native of Leeds, where he won a scholarship to the city's grammar school, and insists on implementing the values he acquired there - graft, honesty, and more graft - in his working life. "What I hate most in business is dishonesty, games playing. I don't mind if people make mistakes so long as they admit them and learn from them. Office politics is basically dishonesty."
But with the iron-hard determination comes an easy charm. Glynn's self-deprecating humour makes him affable company.
You get the sense that Glynn has found an ideal niche for himself. Although he is not a racing aficionado, he loves sporting events and the passion that surrounds them. The only problem is that for such a driven man - he only sleeps four hours a day - running a UK-centric business will not be enough.
Sporting Index sold off its financial spread-betting business to IFX two years ago, and the business is now "100 per cent focused on sporting event spread-betting. We don't do any financial spread-betting. We see ourselves very much as an entertainment business."
It's almost as much adrenaline as entertainment, you realise, as you hear Glynn talk about his business: "The fundamental difference between us and any other type of betting business is that 42 per cent of our business takes place during the event. In the 90 minutes of the football match, or whatever. We are the emotional bet."
Glynn believes "the monetisation of passion" can only expand: "The reason that this business has such growth ahead of it from now is this." Here he waves an internet-enabled mobile phone. "It's theatre on your phone. It's like being on the London Stock Exchange every game. You're trading. And now you have a punt with your pals. You see a booking early on and you realise it's going to be a dirty game. You've bought a position on the number of bookings. Sell it."
Sporting Index will lay you odds on just about anything.
"One of may favourites was a World Cup game. The girlfriend of the Brazilian footballer, Ronaldo, was in the stands. She is fabulously attractive. We offered a very popular bet on the number of times the camera would cut to her during the game."
But you feel that's still not going to be enough for Glynn. He led the buyout of Sporting Index in January 2003 with backing from Duke Street Capital: "The figure was reported as £53m," he says, clearly relishing the fact that deal was private and very few have access to the true financial details.
He wants to expand geographically; he talks about Europe, Australia and South Africa as offering opportunities. But his real objective is the big one - the US: "The market is perfect for us. They have massive access to live sport. They've got 27 games a day televised live over there."
Glynn is one of those who, when full of confidence that things are going well, never misses an opportunity to run himself down: "What we've been poor at, and it's my fault, is that we've not been in a position to take that step [into the US and other foreign markets]. We are now."
Growing a really big business is undoubtedly Glynn's next big challenge. After leaving law in the City ("I just wasn't a very good lawyer," he says) he began a career as a turnaround specialist for small and medium-sized companies. He transformed an events company for a former client, and then went on to become the chief executive of Megalomedia plc, an investment vehicle owned and chaired by Lord [Maurice] Saatchi. They disagreed about strategy and Glynn left, apparently on reasonably amicable terms.
Then came Sporting Index, which he joined in 2001 before the buy-out bid.
He works the typical long workaholic week, but saves the weekends for his wife and three young children.
The only other non-work demand on his time is the onerous role of being a trustee at the Great Ormond Street children's hospital: "It's a big business that pays you back in a way that money could never achieve. That might seem pathetic, but I'm a little, fat Northern businessman, and these people are saving children's lives. The people there are absolutely excellent. The world's got things out of perspective, I think."
Charity work aside, Glynn's perspective is absolutely clear - for him, growing a big business is the winning post. Richard Glynn - Chief Executive of Sporting Index
Please do not copy/paste this content without permission. If you want to use any of it on your website contact us via email at 
traderATfinancial-spread-betting.com (remove the AT and substitute by @).
