Prediction markets, explained without hype
50 research-backed articles on prediction markets, Polymarket mechanics, copy-trading risk and the public cases that shaped the market. Every factual claim links to a primary or reputable source.
FeaturedLou Levit / StockSnap · CC0Bankroll Management for Prediction Markets: Kelly, Fractional Sizing and Ruin
How to size binary bets so a bad streak does not end the account: the Kelly formula for a 0-to-1 payoff, why fractional sizing wins in practice, and a rule set with a worked example.
Startup Stock Photos / StockSnap · CC0Building a Prediction-Market Trading Journal That Changes Decisions
What to record before and after a trade, how to review calibration instead of win rate, which metrics actually separate skill from luck, and a prose template you can copy.
Startup Stock Photos / StockSnap · CC0Copy Trading vs Manual Trading
An honest comparison of copying and trading prediction markets yourself: time, control, learning, fees, execution and the conditions under which each approach makes sense.
Skitter Photo / StockSnap · CC0Event-Driven Trading on Polymarket: Positioning Before the Catalyst
How to trade elections, data releases and court rulings on Polymarket, why holding to resolution and exiting on repricing are different bets, and how resolution risk quietly changes the payoff.
Direct Media / StockSnap · CC0Favorite-Longshot Bias and Expected Value: Why a 5-Cent Contract Can Be a Bad Bet
What the favorite-longshot bias is, how to calculate expected value from price and estimated probability, how to size the trade, and what the 2026 Polymarket evidence does and does not show.
Matt Moloney / StockSnap · CC0Fees and Net Returns in Copy Trading
How subscription fees, Polymarket taker fees, slippage and transfer costs turn a leader's gross return into your net return, with a full worked example.
Olu Eletu / StockSnap · CC0Fishalive: Two Markets, $9 Million, and a Step-Shaped PnL Curve
Fishalive ranks seventh all-time with about $9 million in PnL, but the public profile shows two markets. Both are legs of the same 2026 World Cup match, which makes the record a single-event bet.
Leeroy / StockSnap · CC0Fredi9999: The 2024 Election Book Behind a $16.6 Million PnL
Fredi9999 ranks third all-time with about $16.62 million in PnL. Public activity shows a concentrated 2024 US election book, including losing legs that redeemed for zero.
Startup Stock Photos / StockSnap · CC0Hedging With Prediction Markets: What a Binary Contract Can and Cannot Protect
How to use Polymarket contracts to offset real-world event risk, why a 0-or-1 payoff creates basis risk, what protection really costs, and a worked example with numbers.
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SAHow Polymarket Election Markets Work — and Where They Break
A trader's guide to election contracts: state-level structure, resolution sources, liquidity cycles, base rates versus polls, and the documented disputes.
Wikimedia Commons · CC0How Polymarket Sports Markets Work: Events, Resolution and In-Play Risk
A trader's guide to Polymarket sports contracts: moneyline, spreads and totals, companion events, kickoff order cancellation, in-play delays, fees and the risks that decide the trade.
Altered Reality / StockSnap · CC0How Prediction Market Prices Work: Bid, Ask, Midpoint and the Cost of a Cent
Why the quoted probability is not always the price you get, how spreads and fees change the math, and a worked example showing why a two-cent move can be worthless.
Direct Media / StockSnap · CC0How to Evaluate a Trader Before Copying
A practical way to read a prediction-market track record: sample size, realized versus unrealized profit, return on capital, win-rate traps, drawdown and concentration.
Eric Chan from Hollywood, United States / Wikimedia Commons · BYHow UMA Decides Polymarket Disputes — and Why Traders Fight Them
Polymarket's international exchange uses UMA's optimistic oracle to resolve markets. A bonded proposal, a two-hour challenge window and a token-holder vote decide what counts as true — and a few high-profile disputes show where that breaks.
Tony Webster / Wikimedia Commons · BY-SAInsider Trading on Prediction Markets: The Cases and the Legal Gaps
Prediction-market insider trading is now a documented enforcement problem, with charged soldiers, engineers and White House staff. But the law is unsettled, the cases are few, and most viral accusations remain unproven.
StockSnap · CC0kch123: $11.35 Million PnL and a Position List Full of Zeroes
kch123 ranks fifth all-time with about $11.35 million in PnL. The public position list shows resolved sports bets marked at zero, including a single NBA position that cost nearly $500,000.
50Fish / StockSnap · CC0Liquidity and Slippage in Prediction Markets: Read the Book Before You Trade
How order book depth turns a quoted price into an actual fill, how to measure liquidity, and practical rules for trading without moving the market against yourself.
Negative Space / StockSnap · CC0Longshot Bias in Prediction Markets: Why Cheap Tails Are Usually Overpriced
The evidence behind the favourite-longshot bias, why 2-cent contracts attract buyers, the expected-value arithmetic, and how to size a trade whose payoff is deliberately skewed.
Negative Space / StockSnap · CC0Manipulation in Thin Prediction Markets: What the Evidence Shows and How Traders Can Respond
Why shallow order books are easier to move, what research and enforcement cases actually document, and the practical checks that reduce your exposure without turning every odd price into a conspiracy.
Negative Space / StockSnap · CC0Mean Reversion in Prediction Markets: When a Price Is Just a Spread
How to tell a liquidity blip from a genuine mispricing, why bid-ask bounce fakes reversion, what changes near 0 and 100, and how to avoid picking up pennies in binary markets.
Andrew Pons / StockSnap · CC0Mintblade: Five Markets, $9.1 Million, and the Small-Sample Trap
Mintblade ranks sixth all-time with about $9.11 million in PnL, but the public profile shows only five markets traded. That is too few to distinguish skill from a single good tournament.
Direct Media / StockSnap · CC0Momentum Strategies in Prediction Markets: What Actually Moves a Price
Why probability prices can trend, which catalysts produce real drift, how fees and thin books turn breakouts into losses, and when the momentum edge disappears.
StockSnap · CC0News Trading in Prediction Markets: Speed Is Not the Same as Being Right
A practical framework for trading headlines on Polymarket: verifying the report, checking whether it is already priced, confirming it matches the resolution rule, and sizing for the chance that it is false.
Icons8 team / StockSnap · CC0Polymarket Fees Explained: The Taker Formula, Rebates and Real Costs
How Polymarket's price-dependent taker fee works, what makers pay and receive, how rebates change the math, and which costs never appear on the fee page.
Burst / StockSnap · CC0Polymarket in the US: What the CFTC Settlement Changed
Polymarket can serve US residents only through Polymarket US, a separate CFTC-regulated exchange. Here is what the 2022 order did, how the 2025 re-entry worked, and what the current rules mean for traders.
Icons8 team / StockSnap · CC0Polymarket Liquidity Rewards: Scoring, Maker Rebates and Net Economics
How Polymarket pays market makers through liquidity rewards and maker rebates, how the scoring formula works, and why the headline rate is not the return.
Negative Space / StockSnap · CC0Polymarket Order Types: GTC, GTD, FOK, FAK and Post-Only
How Polymarket's four order lifetimes work, when a market order is really a limit order, how post-only protects maker status, and how fills walk the book.
JESHOOTS.com / StockSnap · CC0Polymarket Wallets and Deposits: Deposit Wallets, Bridges and Withdrawals
How Polymarket's smart wallets work, which chains and assets you can deposit, how withdrawals unwind pUSD, and the operational risks and records that matter.
Bench Accounting / StockSnap · CC0Position Sizing for Copy Trading
Fixed versus proportional sizing, binary-payoff math, correlation and a worked example showing why a copied position should be sized by maximum loss, not by the leader's percentage.
Martin Vorel / StockSnap · CC0Prediction Market Arbitrage: Real Edges, Fake Edges and the Cost of Capital
Binary, negative-risk and cross-market arbitrage on Polymarket, with a worked fee-adjusted example and the reasons most apparent edges disappear.
Rama / Wikimedia Commons · BY-SAPrediction Market Manipulation: What Regulators Have Proven — and What They Haven't
A rare CFTC manipulation case in a prediction market ended in a $35,000 settlement with George Santos. Other cases show manipulation at the oracle, the volume and the data-source layers — but only some are proven.
Negative Space / StockSnap · CC0Prediction Market Resolution and Oracles: Read the Rules Before You Trade
How prediction markets decide who wins, where oracle disputes come from, and a practical checklist for spotting contract wording that can turn a good forecast into a loss.
Martin Vorel / StockSnap · CC0Prediction Market Taxes and Record-Keeping: What to Save, and Why the Rules Are Unsettled
Why platform profit-and-loss figures are not enough, the records that matter when a contract resolves, and how tax treatment differs between the United States, the United Kingdom and other jurisdictions.
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SAPrediction Markets vs Sportsbooks: Exchange, Bookmaker and Who Holds the Risk
The structural differences that matter: counterparty risk, margin versus fees, account limits, hedging, and the unsettled line between federal event contracts and state sports betting.
Bench Accounting / StockSnap · CC0Risk Controls for Copy Trading
The controls that keep a copied portfolio survivable: maximum loss per position and event, drawdown stops, a tested kill switch, and pause rules that distinguish bad luck from a broken process.
Artsy Crafty / StockSnap · CC0Risk Management for Prediction Market Traders: Binary Math, Position Sizing and Kill Criteria
How to size a bet that can go to zero, why correlated markets are one position, and a worked example using Kelly, a hard risk cap and a drawdown rule.
Burst / StockSnap · CC0RN1: A $1.5 Billion Sports Book With $592,000 Still at Risk
RN1 ranks fourth all-time with about $13.38 million in PnL and second for volume. Unlike most of the top names, RN1 had live positions on snapshot day: 100 of them on one page, mostly sports.
Startup Stock Photos / StockSnap · CC0Slippage and Latency in Copy Trading
Why copied fills differ from the leader's, how order-book depth and delay turn a winning signal into a losing trade, and which prediction markets are structurally hard to copy.
Negative Space / StockSnap · CC0Swisstony: $1.85 Billion of Volume and a 1% PnL Margin
Swisstony ranks second all-time for PnL but first for volume. The public record shows 203,104 markets and a profit margin of about one cent per dollar of turnover.
Bango Renders / StockSnap · CC0The Biggest Public Polymarket Wins — and What They Actually Prove
A snapshot of Polymarket's all-time leaderboard and biggest winning positions, including the reported $85 million election profit, with realized and unrealized PnL kept separate.
wikimedia · BY-SAThe Israel-Iran Strike Bets: Suspicious Trades, Unproven Insider Claims
Hours before the US and Israel struck Iran on February 28, 2026, a cluster of Polymarket accounts bet on that date. The trades are documented. Whether anyone traded on inside information is not.
Matthew Henry / StockSnap · CC0The Maduro Polymarket Bet: What Is Proven, What Is Alleged
A new Polymarket account turned about $33,000 into roughly $410,000 betting on Nicolás Maduro's exit. The DOJ has charged a US soldier with using classified information. He is charged, not convicted.
HD Wallpapers / StockSnap · CC0The Polymarket API for Traders: Data API, CLOB and WebSockets
Which Polymarket API to use for market data, positions and order execution, how authentication and rate limits work, and where automated trading breaks.
Startup Stock Photos / StockSnap · CC0The Recurring Mistakes in Copy Trading
The mistakes that repeat across copy-trading accounts: chasing recent profit, ignoring drawdown, oversizing, copying illiquid markets, having no exit plan and over-diversifying.
Marc Chouinard / StockSnap · CC0Theo4: What a $22 Million Polymarket PnL Actually Shows
Theo4 tops Polymarket's all-time PnL board with about $22.05 million. The public record is narrow: 14 markets, no open positions, and no activity since November 2024.
Wilfred Iven / StockSnap · CC0What Are Prediction Markets? How They Work, and What They Do Well
A plain explanation of prediction market mechanics: binary contracts, probability pricing, order books, liquidity, settlement, and the cases where markets are a poor fit.
Matt Moloney / StockSnap · CC0What Is Copy Trading — and What Does It Actually Copy?
How copy trading works in prediction markets, what a copied trade actually mirrors, how wallet permissions differ from platform accounts, and where the risks come from.
Artsy Crafty / StockSnap · CC0What Is Polymarket? Prediction Markets, the CLOB and Polygon Settlement
A practical explainer on how Polymarket works: outcome tokens, the central limit order book, Polygon settlement, who can trade, and the risks that remain after the trade settles.
Negative Space / StockSnap · CC0What the Top Polymarket Traders Have in Common, and What the Leaderboard Hides
The seven largest all-time PnL accounts on Polymarket share scale, category focus, and survival. They do not share a single strategy, and the board itself is a selected sample.
advokatsmart.no / Wikimedia Commons · BYWhy France Blocked Polymarket — and What It Means for EU Traders
France's gambling regulator ordered internet providers to block Polymarket in July 2026. The dispute is about gambling licensing, not market manipulation, and it leaves the EU with a country-by-country patchwork.