Knowingly participating in a Ponzi makes you a scammer because you are paying the Ponzi operator make you the recipient of fraudulent transfers.
I guess here is the meat of what we disagree upon. I don't agree that participating in a ponzi makes you a scammer. And pirate is only a scammer in my book because he didn't admit it was a ponzi up front. If he had admitted it was a ponzi from day 1, then I wouldn't see any reason to give him a scammer tag.
The PPT operators didn't admit it was a Ponzi either.
Open ponzis are illegal only because the law says they are. I don't see participation in a ponzi as any different than other forms of gambling.
Then you don't understand what a Ponzi scheme is. The crux of a Ponzi scheme is that depositors are told that there is some underlying business or investment that does not actually exist.
"A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to its investors from their own money or the money paid by subsequent investors, rather than from profit earned by the individual or organization running the operation. The Ponzi scheme usually entices new investors by offering higher returns than other investments, in the form of short-term returns that are either abnormally high or unusually consistent. Perpetuation of the high returns requires an ever-increasing flow of money from new investors to keep the scheme going."
One definition of gambling:
2: to stake something on a contingency : take a chance
Right, but you can't take that literally. Otherwise, everything would be gambling. Crossing the street takes the chance that you'll get hit by a car but it's not gambling. When you are being lied to about what is happening with your money, that's scamming, not gambling. When you play craps, that you might win or lose is gambling. That the casino might not pay you even if you win or that the table might be rigged is not part of the gambling equation.