Poker has always been compared to the stock market with its risk-to-reward and long-term approach mentality, but these comparisons are usually cited in a generalized way, and always struck me as more philosophical than absolute –where the analogies could be used to discuss just about any topic, poker and the stock market being just two among many.

As I read the story on Taleb, I was amazed at the parallels between Taleb’s version of options trading and the game of poker that went well beyond generalizations and philosophy. For those of you that don’t know what options’ trading is I’ll use a poker analogy: If buying and selling stocks is similar to a poker game, options’ trading is akin to a prop bet. Basically options’ traders bet on what the market might do in the future, and instead of buying or selling stocks they look for people willing to bet the other way.