Would you gamble your life savings on a few hands of blackjack? Probably not. But as a former manager of options trading, I’ve seen amateur investors – encouraged by posts on Reddit and X of massive, easy overnight wins, and offers of “zero-commission” trading online – lose much of their net worth on risky bets.

What bothers me most is that some big trading firms are actually paying brokerages to take the other side of these trades, knowing they have better information than the small investors and so will profit big. These payments are known as “payment for order flow”.