That's a great point. It's all about perspective. 

I'm still wrapping my head around the fact that someone is paying 1/3 of todays value of the share to buy the share in the future. 

Rough estimate is that max leverage with this approach would be limited to (100 *share price today)/premium. Or around 2.5X leverage. 

I wonder at what point this could be considered "seriously degen". 

Right now the mood is "give me 2.5x or bust".

And all these poker games drive up the demand for the poker chips.