SIG

Susquehanna International Group started rich. In its first year, 1987, it cleared $30 million, much of it from put options the founders bought before October's Black Monday crash. A group of SUNY Binghamton friends, Jeff Yass and Arthur Dantchik among them, named the firm after the river near campus and built it into one of the largest options market makers anywhere.

The poker is not a recruiting gimmick. SIG genuinely trains traders through games, teaching decision-making under uncertainty the way other firms teach spreadsheets. It trades only its own capital, acting as specialist or designated primary market maker in roughly 600 equity options and dozens of index options across the major exchanges, while ranking among the biggest ETF market makers and US equity wholesalers. Around the trading sit affiliated arms in private equity, venture capital, and prediction markets, all run from a quiet campus in Bala Cynwyd.