Yes. This categorization of trading is very clear and insightful. Since most of us can't trade like market makers, perhaps the only way to profit is to untilize the risk premium. Behavioral finance has lots of theories on this. I think the premium of vix futures is simply because of the favorite/longshot bias, just like you see in horse racing. There are so many people who want to make profit from the vix spikes, as a result they push the futures' price so high. And when it does jump to a high level, those investors can't wait to cash in the profit. As a result when the vix is high, the futures' price is in deep discount. This is the exactly the bias in horse racing that good hosrse are under bet and poor horses are overbet.