Stocks are EV for obvious reasons. Stocks will always go up because the economy is always growing over any significant period of time and that means more money into the market driving up prices. Futures and options aren't quite as clear. People forget that these were originally created purely for the hedging oportunities they create. They later became the place the biggest gamblers love to converge. After all when you order up contracts of pork bellies you really will get pork bellies if you don't close out your position. Add on top of this that its a zero sum game with the amount won by one person lost by another. When you add commissions it becomes a very difficult proposition. What happens is the people with the biggest resources (money) tend to have the EV in the market at the expense of the smaller fry that are more affected by commissions and have less room to make bad bets. Further the bigger players are generally more informed and can use much more complicated models to come up with their moves. One way I have always believed was EV+ is writing the bets. Selling the calls has long been a good way to gain cash flow and a small edge, with obvious risks that keep most from doing it. Once again a case where those with the money have the edge, those without it are mostly kidding themselves.