The Wolfs Bane

How to play The Wolfs Bane

Below the largest exchanges, he sees numerous operators competing for relatively small shares of a fast-growing category. “If you get 1% of this market, I think it’s a huge opportunity,” Patel said. “There are a lot of people fighting to get 1%.”

Jefferies estimates exchanges can retain approximately 65% of explicit transaction fees, with the balance distributed across clearinghouses, brokers and liquidity providers. It therefore expects more operators to bring parts of the infrastructure in-house.

For the independent suppliers growing alongside them, however, the opportunity expands with every new exchange, contract and market maker. The consumer-facing platforms may attract the users, but their products cannot trade at scale without the data, liquidity and operational machinery developing behind the screen.

What is The Wolfs Bane?

But as mentioned earlier, this is not the first time Grant has been caught in a similar legal tangle with Star Casino, which accused the man of using a strategy known as “edge sorting,” which is essentially discovering an imperfection in the make of the cards used in a table game.

By leaning into that imperfection, players may then exploit the knowledge and tip the house edge in their favor. Most casinos and courts around the world consider this to be cheating.

However, the judgment in that specific case against Star Casino ruled that Grant was a self-professed advantage player, and that a casino where the staff was competent and the games were operated correctly had nothing to worry about. 

What is The Wolfs Bane?

Two years later, Buffett again targeted the “gamblification” of financial markets in his annual shareholder letter.

“Markets now exhibit far more casino-like behavior than they did when I was young. The casino now resides in many homes and daily tempts the occupants,” Buffett wrote, noting that extreme volatility makes identifying sound, long-term investments vastly more difficult.

“One fact of financial life should never be forgotten. Wall Street–to use the term in its figurative sense–would like its customers to make money, but what truly causes its denizens’ juices to flow is feverish activity. At such times, whatever foolishness can be marketed will be vigorously marketed–not by everyone but always by someone,” Buffett warned.