By Staff Writer, Ciceros.org
London, UK — From betting on interest rates at Citibank to breaking down the economy for millions on YouTube, Gary Stevenson has emerged as an unlikely voice of the British left — a man who got rich exploiting economic inequality and then turned around to warn us all about it.
Born in Ilford, East London, in 1986, Stevenson’s upbringing was shaped by financial hardship and social exclusion. Expelled at 16 from grammar school for drug-related misconduct, he clawed his way back through state education, achieving top A-levels at Valentines High before earning a place at the London School of Economics. It was there, among the data and demand curves, that Stevenson first glimpsed the machinery of wealth—and how it was stacked against people like him.
In 2008, fresh out of LSE and in the wake of the global financial crash, Stevenson entered the world of high finance via Citibank. He was hired after winning a trading “card game” competition run by the bank. Within a few years, he was making multimillion-pound bets on inflation and interest rates. By 2011, he claims, he had become Citibank’s most profitable trader globally — a title some dispute, but few doubt he made millions in profit by betting correctly on the long-term impacts of austerity and low interest rates.
But success came at a price. “It made me rich but also made me hate myself,” Stevenson has said in interviews. He found the moral contradictions of making money from a broken system increasingly unbearable—especially as he watched the very communities he came from sink further into poverty.
Leaving Citibank in 2014 at just 27, Stevenson walked away from a career that had already earned him millions. He later completed an MPhil in Economics at Oxford, focusing on the macroeconomic impacts of inequality—effectively reversing the path of so many peers who left academia for finance.
By 2020, Stevenson had launched Gary’s Economics, a YouTube channel blending kitchen-table macroeconomics with streetwise realism and a healthy dose of political rage. With videos titled “Why the Rich Keep Getting Richer” and “The UK Economy Is Screwed (Here’s Why)”, Stevenson speaks to a generation priced out of housing, ignored by Westminster, and desperate to make sense of the chaos. As of 2025, his channel boasts over 1.3 million subscribers and 140 million views.
But Stevenson is not just an internet personality. He’s become a campaigning figure — using his platform to promote policies like wealth taxation, stronger welfare safety nets, and a rebalancing of the British economy. In 2021, he joined a group of 30 millionaires calling on then-Chancellor Rishi Sunak to introduce a tax on extreme wealth — proposing levies only on individuals worth over £10 million.
In March 2024, Penguin published Stevenson’s memoir The Trading Game: A Confession. Part thriller, part economic parable, the book tells the story of a working-class boy who cracked the financial code — and then walked away from it. Critics praised its candour, though some felt Stevenson could have gone further in exploring the systemic reform he advocates.
Yet Stevenson has faced criticism. Some question the accuracy of his trading claims, and others accuse him of oversimplifying complex economic issues. Still, even detractors acknowledge his rare talent for making macroeconomics both accessible and emotionally compelling.
“There’s something very British about his appeal,” says one political commentator. “It’s part confessional, part class-war cry. He’s not trying to look clever. He’s trying to make you see something.”
To his followers, Stevenson is an “inequality economist,” a rare figure in British public life who speaks plainly about why people can’t afford homes, why wages have stagnated, and why the wealth gap has become a chasm. To his critics, he’s a showman with a grudge against the system that enriched him.
Either way, he’s impossible to ignore.
SIDEBAR: Who Is Gary Stevenson?
- Born: 1986, Ilford, London
- Education: London School of Economics; MPhil at Oxford
- Career: Citibank trader (2008–2014); YouTuber & economist (2020–present)
- Known for: Gary’s Economics YouTube channel; The Trading Game (2024)
- Platform: Economic commentary, inequality activism, wealth taxation advocacy