May 18, 2010 at 18:16Online Poker Becomes Wall Street Forge
In the old days, it was impossible to get a Wall Street brokerage company without a financial education, and large firms chose employees with connections that could get insider information. Now times have changed, and in search of talent, hedge funds and brokerage firms have turned their eyes to professional poker players, writes LA Times.
“A person who is successful in poker is likely to be successful in business. If you have no interest in poker, this is an almost red flag. It's like not reading the Wall Street Journal, ”said Dano Robinson, a spokesman for Toro Trading.
It is believed that good poker players have many important qualities for a trader: they instantly make mathematically sound decisions, do not lose their mind when dealing with large amounts of money, and quickly recover from financial losses. They have nerves of steel and analytical thinking - what you need for trading.
The newspaper LA Times gives an example of the famous player Chris Fargis, who was recently hired by the brokerage company Toro Trading. This is generally a blatant case, because the 30-year-old Fargis did not study finance even in college, not to mention higher education. He spent the last six years in his New York apartment, playing on the Internet on eight tables at the same time (this is a normal situation for any regular player - the speed of decision-making is trained like that). And a few days after being hired, he had already gained control of financial instruments worth millions of dollars.
The example of Fargis is not unique. For example, the large trading company Susquehanna International Group (1,500 employees) has made poker courses a central part of its training program for training traders. Beginners are given copies of the classic poker books of Harrington and Sklansky, and then forced to play with instructors once a week. This should teach traders to act effectively in the face of uncertainty.
With a huge army of 6.8 million players and an audience growth of 30% per year (PokerAnalytics.com statistics), online poker is turning into a real blacksmith for Wall Street.
According to expertsSearching for talented traders among poker professionals is not a new approach. “At the end of the last century, bookmaking, emerging in the territory of the former USSR, experienced acute problems with personnel - the bookmaking profession was not taught either in schools, universities, or vocational schools. Then a similar idea came to the rescue - hope for the analytical skills of chess players. After 20 years, we can state success: at the helm of many well-known betting companies, both in the CIS and in Europe, are chess players. ”
Critics of the "poker fashion" on Wall Street say that this trend shows the worst qualities of modern financial capitalism, which is largely based on excitement, greed and deceit. After all, these are also integral parts of poker.
“A person who is successful in poker is likely to be successful in business. If you have no interest in poker, this is an almost red flag. It's like not reading the Wall Street Journal, ”said Dano Robinson, a spokesman for Toro Trading.
It is believed that good poker players have many important qualities for a trader: they instantly make mathematically sound decisions, do not lose their mind when dealing with large amounts of money, and quickly recover from financial losses. They have nerves of steel and analytical thinking - what you need for trading.
The newspaper LA Times gives an example of the famous player Chris Fargis, who was recently hired by the brokerage company Toro Trading. This is generally a blatant case, because the 30-year-old Fargis did not study finance even in college, not to mention higher education. He spent the last six years in his New York apartment, playing on the Internet on eight tables at the same time (this is a normal situation for any regular player - the speed of decision-making is trained like that). And a few days after being hired, he had already gained control of financial instruments worth millions of dollars.
The example of Fargis is not unique. For example, the large trading company Susquehanna International Group (1,500 employees) has made poker courses a central part of its training program for training traders. Beginners are given copies of the classic poker books of Harrington and Sklansky, and then forced to play with instructors once a week. This should teach traders to act effectively in the face of uncertainty.
With a huge army of 6.8 million players and an audience growth of 30% per year (PokerAnalytics.com statistics), online poker is turning into a real blacksmith for Wall Street.
According to expertsSearching for talented traders among poker professionals is not a new approach. “At the end of the last century, bookmaking, emerging in the territory of the former USSR, experienced acute problems with personnel - the bookmaking profession was not taught either in schools, universities, or vocational schools. Then a similar idea came to the rescue - hope for the analytical skills of chess players. After 20 years, we can state success: at the helm of many well-known betting companies, both in the CIS and in Europe, are chess players. ”
Critics of the "poker fashion" on Wall Street say that this trend shows the worst qualities of modern financial capitalism, which is largely based on excitement, greed and deceit. After all, these are also integral parts of poker.
