> You pay IV on one side and get it back on the other, don't you?
No. You get less on the other side. You should look up Black-Scholes to understand how option pricing works.
A put option's value comes from integrating the underlying lognormal distribution between 0 and the strike price. A spread's value comes from integrating the underlying distribution between the two spread strikes. Both heavily depend on IV (i.e. the sigma of the log-normal distribution).
Also, always think about the guy on the other side of the trade. Why would he sell you a spread cheaply if it's obvious that the underlying is very shitty and volatile? Options are bets on the probability distribution of some asset. High IV means "anything is possible". And if anything is possible then it stands that there's little money to be made on a move like "give me insurance against it going up/down". There is some money to be made on "I can underwrite the risk of it going down/up", i.e. on selling the options, i.e. selling the IV.
No. You get less on the other side. You should look up Black-Scholes to understand how option pricing works.
A put option's value comes from integrating the underlying lognormal distribution between 0 and the strike price. A spread's value comes from integrating the underlying distribution between the two spread strikes. Both heavily depend on IV (i.e. the sigma of the log-normal distribution).
Also, always think about the guy on the other side of the trade. Why would he sell you a spread cheaply if it's obvious that the underlying is very shitty and volatile? Options are bets on the probability distribution of some asset. High IV means "anything is possible". And if anything is possible then it stands that there's little money to be made on a move like "give me insurance against it going up/down". There is some money to be made on "I can underwrite the risk of it going down/up", i.e. on selling the options, i.e. selling the IV.