Leeson's case illustrates a pitfall that many people can fall into: being risk seeking on losses, a cognitive impediment that the field of behavioral finance tells us to watch out for. It's bad enough when you're talking about your personal finances, and even worse when its hundreds of millions of dollars that aren't your own. It's also pretty amazing that Leeson could get away with hiding his losses for several years, and that Baring's accountants didn't bother to check up on the £200m or so that were unaccounted for in Leeson's books.