Played by who? Who made money on Theranos? Anyone who knew it was a fraud wasn't going to profit from investing. They wouldn't be able to cash out before the product failed at market. Maybe a supplier would profit from selling supplies, but not the investor/advisors.
'Although Holmes settled her complaint with the SEC Wednesday, agreeing to a broad series of penalties without admitting guilt, Balwani did not settle with SEC, which will continue investigating him'.
'Theranos' board heft was anchored to a 2011 meeting Holmes had with former secretary of state George Shultz, who after joining the board recruited his fellow former secretary, Henry Kissinger. Other notables around the table were former U.S. senators Sam Nunn and Bill Frist, former secretary of defense William Perry, and James Mattis.
Mattis came up in the SEC's investigation. It found that while Mattis was leading the U.S. Central Command he lobbied for Holmes' tech to be used in the military, though regulators flagged issues before the notion took wing. Mattis resigned from Theranos' board when he become U.S. Defense secretary in 2016'.
While I don't think the investors/advisors were necessarily in on this, you're actually mistaken here.
First of all, an advisor could certainly be making money just by drawing a salary or any other compensation. As did Elizabeth Holmes, actually, who drew a salary of 200k (not very large for a CEO, I believe, but certainly this is a very real compensation she got from the fraud).
As for investors, theoretically speaking, early round investors could've sold their shares to later round investors and cashed out.
Again, I'm speaking hypothetically here - I assume there weren't that many people involved in the fraud, just by virtue of the fact that it was kept alive for many years and it's hard to get many people to keep a secret.