So does the government and many charities, the entire city of Las Vegas and churches on Saturday nights across the country, every major sports league (not often directly), etc etc etc.
Pretty much every business takes advantage of the fact that the consumer is lacking something, whether that's knowledge, time, money or material. It's the way capitalism works.
No. Capitalism is a system of decentralised decision making on resource allocation, ultimately leading to increased productivity and innovation.
I have no idea how a ponzi scheme that makes "simple" people overpay fits this description as it leads to incredibly bad resource allocation.
You could argue that such failures are part of capitalism and I would agree. But they are still failures. Capitalism depends on such failures being fewer than those cases where funds go where value is being created.
Pretty much every business takes advantage of the fact that the consumer is lacking something, whether that's knowledge, time, money or material. It's the way capitalism works.