Polymarket lets you buy shares in the outcome of a real event. Every market asks a question, such as "Will the Fed cut rates in December?", with a Yes share and a No share. Here's how it works in five lines:
- A share costs between 1 and 99 cents.
- A correct share pays $1.00 and a wrong one pays $0.
- The price is the crowd's probability. Yes at 62 cents means a 62% chance.
- Other traders set the price. Polymarket never bets against you.
- You can sell any time before the result, at the best price on offer.
The rest of this guide walks you through a full trade with real fee math, the order book, how results get decided, what Polymarket charges, and the difference between Polymarket US and polymarket.com.
A Polymarket trade from start to finish
"Will the Fed cut rates in December?" trades at 62 cents Yes and 38 cents No. You buy 100 Yes shares for $62. The market sits in the economics category on polymarket.com, so the taker fee rate is 0.05. Your fee on the buy: 0.05 x 100 x 0.62 x 0.38 = about $1.18.
| What happens next | Math | Your result |
|---|---|---|
| The Fed cuts | $100 payout minus $62 minus $1.18 fee | +$36.82 |
| The Fed holds | $0 payout minus $62 minus $1.18 fee | -$63.18 |
| Yes climbs to 80 cents and you sell early | $80 minus $0.80 sell fee minus $62 minus $1.18 | +$16.02 |
| Yes drops to 40 cents and you cut the loss | $40 minus $1.20 sell fee minus $62 minus $1.18 | -$24.38 |
Three lessons from the table:
- The most you can lose is what you paid. No margin calls, ever.
- The most you can make is $1 minus your price, per share, minus fees.
- Selling early lets you lock in part of a move without waiting for the event.
What the price means
The price is a probability. Yes and No add up to about $1, because exactly one of them pays out. Buying No at 38 cents is the same bet as selling Yes at 62.
Your edge comes from disagreeing with the price. Say you put the Fed cut at 70%, and Yes costs 62 cents:
- Expected value per share: 0.70 x $1.00 minus $0.62 = 8 cents.
- Fee per share at 62 cents, economics rate: about 1.2 cents.
- Net edge: about 6.8 cents a share, or $6.82 on 100 shares.
If you think the chance is 62% or lower, there's no edge after fees. Skip it. More on reading prices in reading prediction market odds.
Yes or No markets and multi-outcome events
Polymarket markets come in two shapes.
- A single question: "Will the Fed cut in December?" One Yes share, one No share.
- An event with many outcomes: "Who wins the NBA title?" Every team gets its own Yes or No market inside the event.
In a multi-outcome event, each outcome trades on its own book. A made-up four-team example:
| Outcome | Yes price | Implied chance |
|---|---|---|
| Team A | 41 cents | 41% |
| Team B | 30 cents | 30% |
| Team C | 18 cents | 18% |
| Team D | 12 cents | 12% |
| Total | $1.01 | 101% |
The Yes prices add up to about $1 because exactly one team wins. A total above $1 means buying every Yes would cost more than the $1 payout. A total well below $1 on a live event usually means the books are thin, so check each one.
The catalog is huge. Rivo's market catalog counts about 175,000 Polymarket contracts across about 21,000 events. Most of those contracts sit inside multi-outcome events, one per candidate, bracket or game line.
Who sets the price
Other traders. Polymarket runs a central limit order book: buyers post bids, sellers post asks, and a trade happens when a bid meets an ask. Polymarket matches the orders and takes a fee. It never holds a position against you.
How the displayed price works
| Order book | Price shown on the market |
|---|---|
| Best bid 61 cents, best ask 63 cents | 62 cents, the midpoint |
| Best bid 40 cents, best ask 55 cents | The last trade price, because the gap tops 10 cents |
So a thin market with a wide gap shows the last trade, which might be hours old. Check the book before you trust the headline number.
Where new shares come from
When a Yes buyer at 60 cents meets a No buyer at 40 cents, the exchange mints one Yes share and one No share. Together they cost $1, and together they are worth $1 at the end, because one of them wins. The same logic runs in reverse when a pair gets redeemed.
Market orders and limit orders
- Market order: fills now at the best price on the book. You pay the taker fee.
- Limit order: sits on the book at your price until someone fills it. A resting order pays no fee and earns a rebate.
Our take: use limit orders on anything with a gap wider than a cent or two. You save the fee and often a few cents of price too.
How a Polymarket market resolves
Every market has written rules naming the event, the source and the cut-off time.
On polymarket.com
- A proposer posts the result through UMA's optimistic oracle with a bond, usually $750.
- Anyone can dispute it within two hours by posting a matching bond.
- No dispute: the result stands and winning shares redeem for $1.
- One dispute: a fresh proposal starts the clock again.
- Two disputes: UMA token holders vote. The whole process takes four to six days.
Some markets resolve 50-50, paying $0.50 a share to both sides, when the rules treat the outcome as unknowable or cancelled.
On Polymarket US
The exchange decides from the sources named in the rules. Sources outside the rules carry no weight. Every result is final. More detail in how prediction market resolution works.
Polymarket US and polymarket.com work differently
| Polymarket US | polymarket.com | |
|---|---|---|
| Who signs up | US residents with an identity check | Most countries outside the US |
| Money | US dollars | pUSD on Polygon, backed by USDC |
| Custody | The exchange's clearinghouse | Your own smart wallet |
| Order matching | Exchange order book | Off-chain matching, on-chain settlement on Polygon |
| Results | The exchange, final | UMA oracle with public disputes |
| Taker fee rate | 0.0695 on every market | 0 to 0.07 by category |
| Makers | Paid a rebate | No fee plus a share of taker fees |
| Parlays | Combos with 2 to 10 legs | Combos on sports |
Separate accounts, separate balances, separate order books. A market on one side doesn't share volume or prices with the same question on the other. Who can use which is covered in is Polymarket legit and the location checker.
How to get started on each version
polymarket.com
- Check the country list. The US and a long list of other countries are blocked or close-only.
- Sign in with email, Google or a wallet. New accounts from May 4, 2026 get a Deposit Wallet.
- Deposit crypto. The site converts your deposit to pUSD.
- Pick a market, read the rules tab and place a limit or market order.
Polymarket US
- Download the Polymarket US iOS app and verify your identity.
- Deposit dollars by debit card, ACH or wire. Remember: withdrawals go back the same way.
- Pick a market, read the rules and trade.
- For API access, create a key at polymarket.us/developer. The secret shows once.
What Polymarket costs
Takers pay rate x shares x price x (1 - price). The fee peaks at 50 cents and shrinks toward 1 and 99 cents. A 30 cent share and a 70 cent share pay the same fee.
| Trade: 100 shares at 50 cents | Taker fee |
|---|---|
| polymarket.com, geopolitics | Free |
| polymarket.com, politics, finance, tech | $1.00 |
| polymarket.com, sports, economics, culture, weather | $1.25 |
| polymarket.com, crypto | $1.75 |
| Polymarket US, any market | $1.74 |
Deposits and withdrawals carry no Polymarket fee. The full schedule, rebates and parlay fees live in Polymarket fees explained.
Parlays on Polymarket
Both versions offer combos: several outcomes in one position that only pays if every leg wins. Market makers quote combos on request. On polymarket.com they have 400 milliseconds to quote and you get about 10 seconds to accept. See how to parlay on Polymarket.
What changed in 2026
- April 28, 2026: polymarket.com moved to CLOB V2. Balances switched from USDC.e to pUSD. Fees are now set by the protocol at match time instead of being written into your signed order.
- May 4, 2026: new polymarket.com accounts get a Deposit Wallet by default.
- September 25, 2026: Polymarket US moved to a 0.0695 taker rate with maker rebates.
Building on the API? The old SDKs stopped working with V2. The Polymarket API guide covers the current clients.
Five mistakes new Polymarket traders make
- Trusting the headline price on a thin market. A wide gap shows the last trade, not a live price.
- Buying longshots with market orders. On a 5 cent share the fee is a bigger share of your stake, and a wide gap costs more than the fee.
- Skipping the rules tab. "By Friday" and "announce" hide most disputes.
- Holding every position to the end. Selling at 90 cents frees your money for the next trade and removes the last 10 cents of risk.
- Copying a wallet on win rate alone. The next section shows why.
Where Rivo fits
Every polymarket.com trade settles on a public chain, so every wallet leaves a public record. Rivo reads that tape, records the large trades and scores each wallet when its markets settle. It's a $15 a month terminal, not an exchange, and it never holds your money.
What the record shows, as of September 27, 2026:
- The top 200 wallets on the Polymarket leaderboard traded $1.1 billion between them.
- The number one wallet by profit, vito3corleone, won 161 settled trades and lost 179. Right less than half the time, and up $6.55 million. Buying cheap and sizing big beats a high hit rate.
- sainttroplay won 154 and lost 27 and made $4.36 million on $5.6 million traded.
| Wallet | Settled wins and losses | Profit | Profit per dollar traded |
|---|---|---|---|
| vito3corleone | 161 and 179 | $6.55M | 44 cents |
| 00gringo00 | 541 and 130 | $5.10M | 17 cents |
| sainttroplay | 154 and 27 | $4.36M | 78 cents |
| kilian7kilian | 95 and 82 | $4.01M | 44 cents |
| totoro3miyazaki | 262 and 131 | $3.75M | 22 cents |
How you use Rivo on Polymarket:
- Watch: the whale tracker shows large trades as they print, with the wallet's record beside each one.
- Check: paste any address into the wallet tracker for its profit curve, win rate against the odds paid and favorite markets.
- Trade: place polymarket.com orders signed in your own browser wallet, or connect Polymarket US with your own API key. One order ticket shows the exact fee first.
- Automate: build a Polymarket bot, backtest the idea at your size and run it on paper. Live Autopilot on Polymarket is coming soon.
Trading Kalshi as well? Read Kalshi vs Polymarket for the full comparison.
Frequently asked questions
How does Polymarket work?
You buy Yes or No shares on the outcome of an event. Each share costs between 1 and 99 cents and pays $1 if you are right. Other traders set the price on an order book, and the price reads as the market's probability.
How does Polymarket betting work?
You pick a side and buy shares at the current price. A 30 cent share returns $1 if your side wins, a profit of 70 cents before fees. You can also sell the shares before the result at whatever another trader will pay.
How does Polymarket make money?
From trading fees on orders that take liquidity: rate x shares x price x (1 - price), with the rate set by category on polymarket.com and at 0.0695 on Polymarket US. Part of the fee goes back to makers as rebates. Deposits and withdrawals carry no Polymarket fee.
Can you sell on Polymarket before the event ends?
Yes. You can sell any time at the best bid on the order book. You don't have to hold until the market resolves.
What happens if I win on Polymarket?
Each winning share pays $1.00 when the market resolves and each losing share pays nothing. On polymarket.com the payout lands in your wallet as pUSD. On Polymarket US it lands in your dollar balance.
Who sets the odds on Polymarket?
Other traders. Polymarket runs an order book and never sets prices or takes the other side. The price on a market is the midpoint of the best bid and best ask, or the last trade when the gap between them is wider than 10 cents.
What does a Polymarket price mean?
The price is the market's probability. Yes at 62 cents means traders put the chance of Yes near 62%. Yes and No add up to about $1, because exactly one of them pays out.
What is pUSD on Polymarket?
pUSD is the token polymarket.com uses for balances since April 28, 2026. It lives on Polygon and is backed one to one by USDC. The website converts to and from pUSD for you.
Is Polymarket gambling or trading?
Polymarket US is a CFTC-regulated exchange, so you trade event contracts under federal futures law. On either version you buy a position from another trader at a market price and can sell whenever you like, much like trading a stock.