User:Maverick 1987/sandbox

STEVEN KELLY: Born Ilkley, West Yorkshire 22nd July 1964. Educated Bradford Grammar School, joined fathers bookmaking firm working predominantly around the northern racecourses from 1984 – 1989. After two years in Hong Kong as a jockeys agent returned to UK in 1992.

A year later he took the decision to utilise his encyclopaedic knowledge of the horse racing business plus his various contacts within the game to become a freelance racing journalist and simultaneously began operating an exclusive advisory service. His fees and terms were far higher than the traditional services of the time but the success of his strategy is underlined by the fact that the majority of the clientele that joined him in 1995 are still loyal subscribers more than twenty years later.

The advent of the Betting Exchanges at the turn of the millennium combined with the abolition of betting tax saw Steve’s activity/profitability increase significantly. Simultaneously however it brought him into dispute with HMRC. Their contention was that all his winnings (much of them estimated over previous years) were his core income and therefore taxable - a protracted argument in which Steven finished runner up, at great personal cost.

Forced to sell his home and uproot his family to meet both the bill and legal costs, and faced with the prospect of now being a 50% tax payer, Steven decided to recreate his business in a more tax-friendly environment

By now, in tandem with former city trader Jeff Ansell, Steven was also profiting from employing arbitrage skills on the Betting Exchanges. Investing heavily in state of the art software he manoeuvred backing and laying prices on the market leader(s) on races throughout the UK enabling the creation of risk-free bets on the most strongly fancied horse(s) in the majority of races. Small return on outlay – but consistent and at NO RISK.

Having notified all clientele accordingly, Steven and Jeff created Milton Express at the end of 2009. In the summer of 2010 a client suggested to Steven that he construct an introductory commission programme and thereby combine his services with a home-based business opportunity. As a result Winning Express was born, with all administration duties delegated to Admin Solutions(UK) Ltd based in South Yorkshire

In the spring of 2012 Steven sold his shareholding in the company to Acquiro Trading International and then took a six-month sabbatical before Acquiro director Willem Van Heerden persuaded him to join the company in a non-executive consultancy capacity