Not hard to do as there are a few good books on volatility and options to explain IV and how ti reacts to news and market events. Even free info online you can read.
Also wondering - what about ratio trades? A backspread's enemy is moving into the long strike zone and suffering decay there. Since the whole basis of the pre-earnings strad/strang is muted theta decay (I don't believe in a real appreciable gain from IV rise - it's just that the premium settles to close to the risk amount for the shorts), then a backspread should hedge against the decay at cost of decrease in returns. I've also noticed the greatest loss is on Friday - almost zero loss throughout the week, so imo the trade should be closed on Friday mid-day and reopened MOnday morning.
It's all about backtesting. We check what stocks have worked in the previous cycles and what are the current prices and find only the high probability trades at best prices. Te performance page contains the full list of trades, you can see what we trade.
Quick look at investopedia led me to black scholes and binary options modeling. Those concerts were not simple that and quick to understand.
That is because they were directing you to the advanced concepts of calculating IV using Black-Scholes and modeling. I think you can get a practical understanding of IV from several books that are not at Natenberg's level from McMillian and others.
Yeah... you need to stop comparing a risky gamble to a sound diversified investment. I don't see anyone comparing putting it all on black at the tables with investing in Treasuries....
For Volatility in particular I have just (shame on me) discovered Euan Sinclair's books and they are quite good and understandable.