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 behavior 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."

(Reporting by Estelle Shirbon and Michael Holden)

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