EV and betting-game interviews are built around a single idea: trading is about making decisions under uncertainty. Expect to be tested less on a clever trick and more on whether you consistently make good bets.
What this format emphasises
Puzzles are used to evaluate candidates, and what is prized is probability, odds, and expectancy alongside game-theoretic thinking. Susquehanna, for instance, describes trading publicly in almost exactly those terms. In practice that means:
- Expected-value decisions - "would you take this bet, and at what price?" - answered with a clear-headed EV calculation plus a view on variance and risk.
- Betting and market-making games, often with cards or dice, where you price, size, and update as information arrives.
- Options payoffs and the Greeks, where the desk trades derivatives.
- Probability problems and brainteasers throughout.
Watch out. This corner of the industry has a famously poker-inflected culture, and recreational poker really does show up in internship programmes. But whether a scored poker round appears in the interview is not something firms document - treat that as folklore. The underlying skill, calibrated betting under uncertainty, is very real and very much tested.
How they evaluate you
Key insight. Consistency beats brilliance. These desks want to see you reliably make positive-expected-value decisions, size risk sensibly, and update when the odds change - the daily job of a trader. Calibrating your confidence honestly matters as much as the point estimate.
How to prepare
- Build expected value and probability fluency until the setups are automatic.
- Train betting judgement with the Take the Bet game, and quoting with Make a Market.
- Internalise why EV alone is not the price - the St. Petersburg paradox and the Kelly criterion capture exactly the judgement this format probes.
Then work the question set for this format.