Pit Market Trading

We are going to set up a commodities (e.g., oil) market in which there are buyers and sellers (e.g., commodities traders at the New York Mercantile Exchange). The information that you need to make trades is contained on a playing card that I will pass out shortly. Face cards have been removed from the decks so that all remaining cards have a number. The buyer's cards are black (clubs or spades), and the seller's cards are red (hearts or diamonds). Each card represents one unit of the commodity (e.g., 1000 barrels of crude oil) that can be bought by buyers or sold by sellers. There will be several trading periods.

Source: Holt, Charles A., "Trading in a Pit Market," Journal of Economic Perspectives, 10(1), 193-203, 1996.