Not really. Sure, people make money on their market bets... but the real money is made by sitting in the middle of other people's transactions. That way, you get money when they open their bet, and you get money when they close out their bet. It doesn't matter whether they won or lost, because they have to go through you.
And that's why high-frequency trading should be deemed illegal because it is technically insider-trading; the intermediary makes a commission and masks the true positions of buyers and sellers, profiting at the expense of both.
I'm talking about exchanges. Matching buyers to sellers is actually something that adds value.
Market makers are also similar.
(Also, the rest of your comment makes no sense. "High frequency trading" is just trading at high frequencies; it's not any different from any other trading strategy. Your program quotes the other guy a price, he either accepts or doesn't.)
