UBS trader gambled away $2.3 bln, court told

LONDON, Sept 14 (Reuters) - A British prosecutor accused former UBS trader Kweku Adoboli on Friday of fraudulently gambling away $2.3 billion, believing he had the magic touch but instead causing "chaos and disaster to himself and to all those around him".

Adoboli, 32, is on trial at Southwark Crown Court accused of two counts of fraud and two counts of false accounting. He has pleaded not guilty.

Opening the prosecution case a year almost to the day since the then trader was arrested, counsel Sasha Wass said: "Mr Adoboli had ceased to act as a professional investment banker and had begun to approach his work as a naked gambler. He had become what is sometimes referred to as a rogue trader.

"Adoboli's motive for this behaviour was to increase his bonus, his status within the bank, his job prospects and his ego," Wass said. "He did this by exceeding his trading limits, by inventing fictitious deals to conceal this and then he lied to his bosses."