[saalweachter]

Also, if you do find an edge, you need to be prepared for what happens when everyone else discovers your arbitrage opportunity, and/or you tap out the potential of it.

A number of failed finance companies have the story: find a legitimate arbitrage opportunity; take on a billion dollars in investment to exploit the opportunity; make bank; other people discover your arbitrage opportunity and jump on; stop making bank; try riskier and riskier investment opportunities to keep it going; engage in outright fraud to keep it going; go bankrupt and/or to jail.

[mewpmewp2]

Stock market is such a slippery addiction slope. With casino a reasonable person would know, the odds are stacked against themselves, but with Stock Market, there's no guarantee and it's really easy to convince yourself that you have an edge, and sometimes it works for a while, and then it doesn't, but you are already used to that feeling of reward, and as you said you will start to engage in riskier and riskier opportunities to get that feeling back.