So are you saying trade spreads where there is a difference in Vol but keep it delta neutral with adjustments by buying and selling stock.
No, I don't think there is any chance you will make money trading this stuff in a retail account. There is a lot of confusion here. The concept of gamma scalping came out of necessity not out of looking for edge. Market makers take on long premium when paper gets sold to them. They have to buy that paper whether they want to or not. So to hedge that exposure they engaged in gamma scalping. Buying spreads where there is a difference in vol equates to maybe .01 to .03 cents which you surely lose in the bid/offer of purchasing the and selling the option not to mention the spread in the stock. Don't believe me? Pull up an option model and play around with the vol settings. Change the values of the calls and puts by a few percent. It comes out to pennies even if the % looks large. For example, a call option might have an implied vol of 32% at .23 and that same call would have an implied vol of 38% at .25. So one looks at that and says wow, look at that spread in vol. Sure, it's two freaking pennies and you have to pay that out in slippage and commissions. Guys, this is not a retail strategy. It's effective if you can either get paid for order flow or if you can earn the spread as a market maker. Simply buying and selling stock 100's of times to try to capture a few pennies is fruitless and honestly, it's harder then directional trading. In fact, in another way it's directional trading plus vol trading trading. So it's even harder. You could be right on your scalps and still lose money on vol and vice versa.
Marverick74 - Glad that you are willing to spend time to educate the newbie and give the real picture of how dumb to scalp gamma in retail account. I just don't have the mood to write this kind explanation line to line