World's best trader won $35,000,000 with a bet about the economy

The guy who is the self-proclaimed ‘world’s best trader’ won $35,000,000 with a bet about the economy.

Gary Stevenson says he was Citibank’s top trader, and that one brutal insight about the global economy led to the biggest trade of his career.

He claims the bet made the bank $35,000,000 and turned him into a millionaire in his early 20s.

But the win also left him questioning what it really means to profit from a system in decline.

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World’s best trader won $35,000,000

Stevenson describes arriving on a London trading floor that felt like another world; it was full of bankers, crypto bros, and easy cash.

On his first day, he was sent out to buy lunch, then was stunned when a senior trader silently stared him down after he tried to return the change.

It was a small moment, but he says it revealed the culture instantly; it seemed that money was everywhere, status mattered, and newcomers were constantly tested.

His own path into that world was far from straightforward; he grew up in Essex in the UK, was expelled from school at 16, then fought his way back into education, eventually earning a place at the London School of Economics.

At LSE, he says he realized internships were often handed to students with lots of money, elite backgrounds, and polished extracurriculars, so instead of trying to compete through connections, he found another way in.

That came through Citibank’s Trading Game, a recruitment contest he claims he won by reading opponents and controlling the price like a real market.

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He made a risky bet about the economy

The turning point came in early 2011, after a meeting with one of Citibank’s top economists.

The world’s best trader said he walked out, realizing governments and middle-class families were sinking deeper into debt, which meant someone else had to be accumulating the assets.

From that insight, he built a major trade: he bet that rates would stay close to zero far longer than the market expected, because the economy was too fragile to recover quickly.

He claims the bet worked perfectly, earning Citibank $35,000,000 and paying him around $1,000,000 personally.

But instead of feeling like a triumph, the millionaire trader said it triggered a moral crisis because in his view, the trade was tied to a future where inequality worsened, and ordinary people paid the price.

He eventually left the bank, later warning that the dream of getting rich is often sold as achievable for everyone, while the system is designed to funnel wealth upward.

For him, the biggest trade was not just about money, it was about what the economy was really becoming and whether you want to put your money where your morals are.

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