SEBI’s own study found that over 91% of individual traders in futures and options lost money in 2024-25, with combined losses of about ₹1.06 lakh crore. The products are not a scam. They are just built for a different player.
Every year, SEBI, India’s market regulator, counts how individual traders did in the futures and options market, often called F&O. Every year the answer is roughly the same. In 2024-25, more than nine in ten lost money. Together, after costs, they lost about ₹1.06 lakh crore, up 41% from about ₹75,000 crore the year before. India is now one of the largest markets in the world for these contracts by number of trades, and most of that activity comes from individuals.
What F&O actually is
Futures and options are derivatives, contracts whose value depends on something else, usually an index like the Nifty. An option gives the right to buy or sell at a set price before a deadline, often just a week away. Because you are buying a right rather than the shares themselves, an option can cost a few hundred rupees while giving exposure to lakhs of rupees of market movement. That built-in leverage is the attraction. It is also the trap.
Most short-dated options expire worthless. Buying one is closer to buying a lottery ticket on the index than to investing. You can win big occasionally, which is what gets shared on social media, but the steady, quiet outcome is a slow loss of every premium paid.
In F&O, someone is on the other side of every trade. For individual traders, that someone is usually a professional.
Who wins
The same SEBI data shows who takes the other side: proprietary trading firms and foreign funds using algorithms that react in microseconds, with better data and far more capital. They made large profits in the same year individuals lost. Brokers and exchanges also earn on every trade, and the government collects securities transaction tax.
Why people keep coming back
Behavioural economists point to a few reasons. Small, frequent wins feel more memorable than a steady drain. Losses on a cheap option feel trivial each time, even when they add up. And trading apps make the whole experience feel like a game. SEBI has tightened the rules, raising the minimum contract size and limiting weekly expiries, and fewer individuals traded as a result. For a student watching this from the outside, the lesson is plain: a product can be legal, popular and still structurally stacked against the people buying it.
Sources: SEBI study on profits and losses of individual F&O traders, July 2025.
- Over 91% of individual F&O traders lost money in 2024-25, according to SEBI.
- Their combined net losses were about ₹1.06 lakh crore, up from about ₹75,000 crore the year before.
- Options are cheap to buy, which makes them feel like small bets. Most expire worthless.
- Professional firms on the other side of these trades have better technology, data and capital.
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