Many of its problems stemmed from heavy losses sustained by the banking system, which had taken a spectacularly ill-judged gamble on Greece's sovereign debt.
Spending all his savings and putting himself into debt, Ray took a gamble on an idea he had to create a place for people to mountain bike during the winter.
Some private equity firms have been accused in the past of taking a gamble with the companies they buy up, by loading them up with debt - something that allows them to reduce the amount of cash they need to invest themselves, and which allows them to deduct the interest payments from their tax bill.
Giving money to private-equity managers, who then use debt to acquire quoted companies, is viewed in an entirely different light but amounts to the same gamble.