Laura Pedersen, a young woman barely out of high school, describes how she found herself in the surreal, carnival-like atmosphere of the "pit," on the trading floor of the American Stock Exchange. Aged eighteen, Pedersen was learning the ropes where the real trading is done. Just a year later, she was trading millions of dollars' worth of options and futures and coping with the male-dominated world of The Pit. Daily she learned to live with brutal practical jokes, torn clothes, deafening noise, and nakedly aggressive behavior that is the essence of finance under combat conditions. By turns hilarious and frightening, Pedersen's account blows the lid off the Decade of Greed. Every day is profoundly nerve-racking, as she must make split-second decisions that could cost her company millions. In PLAY MONEY the reader experiences firsthand the panic and desperation following the crash of 1987. Pedersen also reveals the overheated manic mixture of greed, cunning, sex, cynicism, and compulsion that lies behind the market's orderly facade, and tells how she made her first million dollars before she was twenty-two. PLAY MONEY shows as never before how unwary investors stuffed money into a volcanic Cuisinart. It's shocking, unforgettable, and true.