&gt; Most people in Ponzi schemes are being directly mislead. They don&#x27;t think it&#x27;s a gamble.<p>Most people are being directly mislead. This is true for the vast majority of the human experience. Politics, love, advertising, the list goes on.<p>Why are Ponzi schemes less palatable than being fleeced by automated scripts on a sports-betting site? In both cases, people think they will make money because they are smart, when they actually will lose money because they are dumb.