"work through a third party/broker (still pretty expensive, but also less efficient)" <-- there are a glut of brokers and a lack of market participants, so the

"work through a third party/broker (still pretty expensive, but also less efficient)" <-- there are a glut of brokers and a lack of market participants, so the costs have naturally fallen. 250K will get you time and tick on 4:1 leverage If you are really interested, it would make sense to start now before rule 15c3-5 kicks in