Care to share one of these "well told stories of amateur investors making literally billions of dollars finding holes in option contracts that the hedge funds and IBanks missed" ?
They started with $100k pooled together from 3 guys' life savings. How much did they make?
Exactly.
The wikipedia article, short as it is, covers through 2010 when that $100k grew to "100 to 300 Million." Read the latest write-up of them in FT. It's a billion dollar venture now.