Young men will compete over just about anything. Whether it’s over a girl they know, a promotion at work, or a physical competition — all it takes is a dent to your reputation or a risk of embarrassment for most men to compete and for a few men to go to any length for a win.
That motivation to compete, the effort undertaken to win, and the emotional intensity resting on the outcome is magnified 10x when money’s on the line. Bets and the emotional decision making that come with them, just come with the territory of putting 40 guys in a room together with a scoreboard, onlookers or a PnL sheet hanging over their heads.
Good Question
In any regular Fraternity House, you’ll walk through the halls and see any number of parlor games. Billiards, ping pong, darts, shuffleboard or poker to name a few. Don’t forget sports betting on Football Sunday or just good old fashioned drinking games.
Stakes are almost irrelevant. From a $1 gentlemen’s bet, to “loser does a shot” bets or maybe the pissing contest of betting real, hard earned cash. Ridiculous bets on things which provide no real economic value is as true in the fraternity house as is it is on the trading floor.
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The good news is those proto-gambling dens create lessons to apply in the real world both for trading the markets and life. For some college kids, fraternity life is the first time you encounter financially risky and competitive games. If you’re lucky, you learn to control your emotions and hopefully build an intuitive sense of things like odds, when risk-taking is smart, or learn how other people behave when they win or lose. You learn there are sore losers, sore winners , and you can learn to be on the lookout for traps/scams/tricks and cheats.
Some of the best trading lessons you learn in a Fraternity environment include:
No one likes to bust out first at 9:00PM in poker. One learns ideas like how to avoid risk of ruin, knowing the true odds of success versus the odds you receive for winning (do you have an edge?) and all the other ABCs of gambling
Take a seat, we’ll teach you.
Sometimes you get scammed. Not always in a big way but you learn when someone is bullshitting you and you learn there definitely are types of people who can be scammed for their cash and there are cheaters who will take advantage of that.
Past Results are Not Indictive of Future Returns You learn most people don’t really know when the hell they’re doing. They are just crafting a narrative for why their Football team is a lock at +360. You learn some people think luck is skill and more fascinating, some people attribute skill or natural talent to luck.
Hot hand fallacy anyone?
Tenacity and grit versus addiction - You learn who has the tenacity and grit to keep playing the games after a tough loss or who lacks the self control to stop trying when they know they can’t win.
