Its probably weirder than that. As soon as their system "lost containment" all of that money probably just diffused into the market like smoke amid hundreds of

Its probably weirder than that. As soon as their system "lost containment" all of that money probably just diffused into the market like smoke amid hundreds of thousands of trades. There's no "big winner" on the other side of the table grumble at. HFT systems aren't like a bunch of poker players slyly eying one another across a table, they're more like electro-chemical gold miners concentrating gold from the rivers of cyanide sludge pumping up from the financial system mines. Heaven help them if they depolarize.