Regular people do not get 1:10 leverage in a margin account. Furthermore if you lever yourself up to 10x with options or exotic ETFs or whatever, and the market goes down by 10%, you don't have any money left. If you put 10% down on a house and the value goes down by 10%, you still have a house to live in even if you don't have any equity. You can choose to just sit and wait for the market to recover. There's no recovery from getting margin-called on your 10x leveraged account.