Quote from atticus:
You're an idiot.
Comment like this is just infantile and not constructive to the discussion.
If you take the most simplistic view and focus on an option trade on its own, I agree it's a zero-sum game (ignoring other fritional costs). But participants trade for different reasons, and that's why I think you need to look at the bigger picture. For instance, you could have an arbitrageur on one side of a trade, and he could be losing on this trade but overrall making money.
Same with futures btw. Futures markets on their own are zero-sum, but hedgers are better off because they are able to off load unwanted risks.
