I started thinking, let's say I'm a politician and I get news of some event that's going to happen, and I buy a stock. The stock performs incredibly and I make $100 million.
As far as I know, there are people who own the stock, people who have options either way on the stock, and people who short the stock.
The losers in a situation like this would be people who have puts (speculation based on public info), people who are short the stock (again, speculation), and the market makers.
So for someone to inside trade - who are they really harming? Who's getting hurt? To me it seems like any retail investor is responsible for their own risk management; if they're short a stock or have massive put positions, that's on them for betting against the market, and I have no sympathy there. But the market makers - they're the ones that have to pay out the winnings. Where does their money come from? Does this actually hurt the public?