People need to invest their money somewhere. In this case, the sucker would actually have been DB's investors if the worst case ever did happen. (They would h

People need to invest their money somewhere. In this case, the sucker would actually have been DB's investors if the worst case ever did happen. (They would have gone under like many other banks - the bailout saved them.) In this case the investors they sold protection to (hedge funds) got better prices than they ordinarily would have, because of the risk hidden in the conduit.