Where do you get the idea of high risks? High frequency trading is actually less risky because there is less chance of you getting caught in one of the fat-tails.
Quote from CPTrader:
Even if your thesis that the market is just repetitions of minute scale patterns (and this may be true), is HFT the way to exploit this? Is HFT still a viable proposition given the high risks involved and the very high transaction costs.
HFT seems intriguing because of its novelty, but it reminds me of an option selling strategy - it seems very good until you gat a volatility explosion and in one INfrequent event you get decimated.