How does Polymarket work?

Polymarket is a prediction market. Each Polymarket market asks a question about a future event, such as who wins an election or whether a central bank cuts rates. Traders buy shares in an outcome at a price between about one cent and one dollar; the price is the probability the market gives that outcome. When the event is decided, each share on the correct side pays one dollar and the other shares expire worthless.

Updated 2026-10-13

How do Polymarket shares and prices work?

A Polymarket share is a claim on one dollar if an outcome happens, priced between about one cent and one dollar. A Yes share at 72 cents means the market puts the chance of Yes at about 72 percent, and the No share on the same market trades at about 28 cents, so the two sides add up to roughly one dollar. Prices move as traders buy and sell through Polymarket’s order book, which makes a Polymarket market a live reading of what traders believe, updated with every trade. A trader can sell shares at any time before the market resolves, at the current price, so a position does not have to be held to the end. Polymarket runs thousands of markets at once, across politics, sports, crypto, economics and culture.

What happens when you win on Polymarket?

Winning on Polymarket means holding shares on the correct side when the market resolves. Every share on the winning side pays one dollar, and every share on the losing side pays nothing. A trader who buys 100 Yes shares at 72 cents pays 72 dollars; if Yes wins, the shares pay 100 dollars, a profit of 28 dollars, and if No wins, the shares pay nothing. Buying at 10 cents pays 10 times the stake on a win, which is why long shots are cheap and favourites are expensive. Winnings are credited in USDC to the account’s wallet, from where the money can be withdrawn or used for the next trade.

What is visible about a Polymarket account?

A Polymarket account is created by signing in with an email address, a Google account or a crypto wallet, and funded by depositing USDC. Polymarket gives the account a wallet that holds its shares and its balance; according to Polymarket’s documentation, this applies to email and Google sign-ins as well as to connected wallets. That wallet is public: anyone can open the account’s profile and see its positions, results and history, and according to the wallet activity documentation, public endpoints return the same data for any wallet address. Trading on Polymarket therefore means trading with a public record attached to the account.

How can a trader use the same Polymarket markets privately?

OffMarket is a web app for trading Polymarket markets with positions that are not publicly linked to the trader’s account. OffMarket uses the same Polymarket markets, the same order book and the same odds, so a share that costs 72 cents on Polymarket costs 72 cents on OffMarket and pays the same one dollar on a win. The only change is the public record: a wallet tracker, a leaderboard or a profile search pointed at an OffMarket account finds no positions to report. Getting started takes three steps.

1. Sign in to OffMarket with Google or connect a crypto wallet.
2. Deposit USDC.
3. Trade the same Polymarket prediction markets at the same odds. Positions are not publicly linked to the account.