You must have heard about them. Technical trading interviews often include market making games. How can you prepare for market making games in trading interviews? This blog will elaborate on how you can prepare for them.

Market making games are often an essential part of trading interviews. They provide the interviewer with clear insight into how the candidate reacts under pressure. A good trader possesses a balance of capabilities. One term that you might hear more than once is that a good trader is ‘streetwise’. They are often the clever ones with games on the street and find quick solutions to win any game. This is a completely different skill set than just being smart. There are plenty of examples of STEM PhD students who don’t make it in trading.

What is a market making game?

You can play a market making game with virtually anyone, anywhere, anytime. Market makers follow market information to determine the price of a certain asset. In a very rough way, you can describe this as “guessing the real price of the asset.” This is exactly what you’ll do during a market making interview.

The interviewer will ask you to “make a market” on, for example, the number of bikes in Amsterdam. This means the interviewer wants you to provide a buy and sell quote based on how many bikes you think are in Amsterdam. If you estimate there are at least 500,000 bikes but no more than 2 million, you make a market of 500,000 to 2 million. If the interviewer believes there are more than 2 million, they will buy from you. You are now one lot short at 2 million, and the interviewer is one lot long.

There are various ways this game can be played and how it proceeds after the first trade. If you want insights into the most common ways that market making games are played during trading interviews, stop searching terms like ‘market making game Reddit’, ‘Jane Street market making games’, ‘Citadel market making games’, or ‘Optiver market making games’ without finding useful preparation tools. Instead, check out our market making course and start playing our market making game online.

Playing the market making games

Our market making games help you speed up the preparation process for your interviews. Normally, you need a counterparty to assist you with your preparation, but this person may not always be available when you are. Explaining the process to new people also takes time. Our market making games are always ready when you are.

There are two different ways to play the market making game:

• From a market maker’s perspective
• From a market taker’s perspective

Market Maker’s Perspective

The classic “Make me a Market!” game is played from the market maker’s perspective. You are asked to quote a bid and an ask for something specific, such as: “Make me a market on the length of the Great Wall of China in meters!” You can use our market making game to start practicing. Our game simulates real-life interview scenarios, including “news flashes” to which you must react with your quotes.

Market Taker’s Perspective

In the classic “Make me a Market!” game, the candidate acts as the market maker and the interviewer as the market taker. However, in some other market-making games, the roles are reversed. These games are often based on probability, where the interviewer presents quotes to which you must react. Have a look at our following games:

• A classic cards-based game that occurs in many trading interviews – EV Card Game.
• A cards- and dice based game, that also occurs in many trading interviews – EV Dice and Card Game

Market of Cards – Be a Market Maker and Market Taker

Please check out this blog post for more information on the ‘Market of Cards’ game, our most epic game yet. “Market of Cards” is a strategic card game that combines the market making and market taking elements into one game. Designed for multiple players (the user and multiple AI agents), this game challenges players’ ability to predict, strategize, and make wise trading decisions based on limited information.

In “Market of Cards”, players act as both market makers and market takers, dealing with a deck of normal playing cards. Featuring a unique scoring system that assigns different values to red and black cards, and a trading mechanism where players bid and ask based on their cards’ expected values, the game offers endless strategic possibilities.