In addition to regular index fund investing I trade options sometimes. Been doing it for about 6 months now and I'm up about 90%. I am a lot more conservative than most options gamblers but it's still pretty risky. I put all my gains into high earnings stocks (currently buying STX and LYB) and at this point since I've almost doubled my principal, I could lose basically all my money currently allocated to options and have only lost 10% from my initial investment. I do it somewhat as a way to earn money but mostly for the experience, since I think it helps me learn a lot about how equities are priced and how the market reacts to news and macro events.
Rather than continually making bets just for the sake of making bets I only make trades when I think a stock overreacted to bearish news (meaning it's likely to rebound to its old price given that the business' fundamentals are unaffected), was oversold due to underperformance of other stocks traded alongside it, or is greatly overvalued due to some irrational hype (Lyft and most canadian weed stocks). And I sell quickly if the option loses a lot of its value or if the option greatly appreciates to lock in profits and limit losses.
Rather than continually making bets just for the sake of making bets I only make trades when I think a stock overreacted to bearish news (meaning it's likely to rebound to its old price given that the business' fundamentals are unaffected), was oversold due to underperformance of other stocks traded alongside it, or is greatly overvalued due to some irrational hype (Lyft and most canadian weed stocks). And I sell quickly if the option loses a lot of its value or if the option greatly appreciates to lock in profits and limit losses.