Why be an option/futures/day trader when it is zero-sum?
jaydub: I think it has to do with the "superstar" phenomenon that Taleb discusses in Fooled by Randomness & The Black Swan. Being a dentist, you are not likely to see a multi-million dollar salary - yet you can definitely live comfortably.What I believe Taleb's philosophy _was_ (he now remarks in bold text: "Finance is for philistines!" on http://fooledbyrandomness.com/ )  that by exploiting the random nature of markets he could "swing for the fences" by placing many small extremely risky bets that if they paid off -- even infrequently -- would guarantee him a lot of money.From the little that I know/think I know: Options are a good way to leverage small amounts of capital into potentially large gains. If the price of the underlying security doesn't behave as you expected you can let your option contract expire worthless - meaning you have a defined risk which is what appealed to Taleb. Even in the worst case he knew how much was at stake.