The high-wire true story of the millionaire trader, who won the finance game and then blew it wide open
'If you were gonna rob a bank, and you saw the vault door there, left open, what would you do? Would you wait around?'
Ever since he was a kid, kicking broken footballs on the streets of East London in the shadow of Canary Wharf's skyscrapers, Gary wanted something better. Something a whole lot bigger.
Then he won a competition run by a bank- 'The Trading Game'. The prize- a golden ticket to a new life, as the youngest trader in the whole city. A place where you could make more money than you'd ever imagined. Where your colleagues are dysfunctional maths geniuses, overfed public schoolboys and borderline psychopaths, yet they start to feel like family. Where soon you're the bank's most profitable trader, dealing in nearly a trillion dollars. A day. Where you dream of numbers in your sleep - and then stop sleeping at all.
But what happens when winning starts to feel like losing? When the easiest way to make money is to bet on millions becoming poorer and poorer - and, as the economy starts slipping off a precipice, your own sanity starts slipping with it? You want to stop, but you can't. Because nobody ever leaves.
Would you stick, or quit? Even if it meant risking everything?
This is an outrageous, unvarnished, white-knuckle journey to the dark heart of an intoxicating world - from someone who survived the game and then blew it all wide open.
About the Author
Gary Stevenson left his trading career behind, convinced that solving inequality was the only way to repair the world economy. He has since studied for an MPhil at Oxford, worked with economic think-tanks and founded a YouTube channel, GarysEconomics, teaching people about real-world economics. He regularly appears on television and radio and has written for the Guardian and OpenDemocracy, among others.
Industry Reviews
Compelling, intensely readable, unsettling. An unforgettable story of greed, financial madness and moral decay. -- Rory Stewart
An incredibly important and timely book, very much of its era. The Wolf of Wall Street with a moral compass, it lays bare the spiritual vacuity of the systems and processes that both dominate and reduce our humanity. -- Irvine Welsh
Astonishing, enraging, extremely funny and exquisitely sad - a magnificent expose of the 'masters of the universe' whose greed imperils us all. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. -- The Secret Barrister
The Trading Game is the best finance memoir I've ever read. Gary Stevenson's tale of plundering Wall Street like some kind of cockney pirate is by turn hilarious and harrowing. A thrilling read that raises profound questions about who runs the global financial system. -- Zeke Faux, author of Number Go Up
Compelling, intensely readable, unsettling. An unforgettable story of greed, financial madness and moral decay. -- Rory Stewart
An incredibly important and timely book, very much of its era. The Wolf of Wall Street with a moral compass, it lays bare the spiritual vacuity of the systems and processes that both dominate and reduce our humanity. -- Irvine Welsh
