[tomatowurst]

but wouldn't it be easy to catch people with lot of near expiry far OTM put options for instance?

Or are these people going on r/wallstreetbets to write long DD upvoted by bots, purchased accounts, awards, under VPN to make their purchases seem organic?

Still wouldn't it be obvious somebody doing that routinely and establishing a pattern of unusually high win rates before earnings?

Sort of like how poker companies catch cheaters, simply by knowing the average win rate to be within a specific distribution, even the slightest deviation or outlier would send its risk management scrutinizing play by play to determine a pattern.

Wouldn't large state actors with web of shell companies be able to obfuscate and get away with impunity? Literally printing money and also weaponizing a foreign financial market.

[R0b0t1]

Making money isn't illegal, you need to actually catch them committing the crime. You could also do something like advantage a single business and make your money that way instead of engaging directly with stocks and options.

[blablabla123]

Buying near expiry OTM options is kind of the gold standard on r/wallstreetbets anyway. But I think giving away insider DDs there would cannibalize the winning chance and could in theory even turn a projected win into a loss which is why ultimately this information isn't thrown around easily. That said, a winning streak by someone can really just be pure luck and most DDs are based on incomplete/speculative information. Also that's really the point of wsb to place actual bets (safe plays are on r/investing...)

[pigtailgirl]

had the original comment as a "draft" for 5 hours for this very reason - my guess is - hence the: long lived - you'd only be able to do it over long period of time in "small" amounts - but yes - in theory it should be very easy to spot - however given the level of sophistication here - these folks are clearly very very smart - I can think of a half dozen ways to launder the stocks if super inclined - you'd also probably focus on supply chain trades -