Len Ainsworth's January sale of most of his shares in Ainsworth Game Technology to Austrian gambling giant Novomatic marked the second time he divested from a pokies business he founded. The first, at Aristocrat, turned out to be premature, after a cancer diagnosis that wasn't. But you can't say Ainsworth's timing wasn't impeccable the second time round.

That's because with Friday's trading update, which slashed forecast pre-tax profit by 53 per cent, those 172 million shares he offloaded for $473 million on January 5 would today be worth far, far less. By selling in January, he got $265 million more than he would have gotten at market-prices on Friday: one last fantastic trade before the 95-year-old sailed off into retirement.