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How prediction markets work, what the prices actually mean, and how to trade them without getting the basics wrong.
- ANALYSIS
What are the Champions League 2026-27 winner odds?
One matchday into the 2026-27 league phase, the prediction market and the bookmakers disagree about who is favourite. The disagreement is real, but so is the reason to discount it: almost none of the money on this board is being spent on the favourites.
4 MIN READ - ANALYSIS
What are the 2027 French presidential election odds?
Six months before the first round, the market makes Marine Le Pen a little less likely than not to become France’s next president. The more interesting numbers are further down the board: a mayor polling at 3.5% priced like a serious contender, a former prime minister polling at 15% priced at 2¢, and a court case that decides whether the favourite is even on the ballot.
5 MIN READ - ANALYSIS
What are the 2028 presidential election odds right now?
Twenty-five months out, the market’s favourite to win the 2028 US presidential election is priced at about one in five. That number is the product of two separate bets, it hides a gap between the party and candidate boards, and it is shaped as much by the cost of locking money up until November 2028 as by anyone’s view of the race.
6 MIN READ - ANALYSIS
Will the US invade Iran before 2027? What the market prices
The US and Iran have been at war since 28 February, and the market on a US invasion still trades at 14.5 cents. That is not a contradiction. The contract does not pay on strikes, blockades or raids — it pays on an offensive to take and hold Iranian ground.
6 MIN READ - ANALYSIS
Who do the markets think will be Israel’s next prime minister?
Israel votes on 27 October 2026, and the market on its next prime minister has a new favourite. It does not pay on who wins the most seats, or on election night. It pays on who is formally sworn in, and in Israel that can take months.
6 MIN READ - GUIDE
Is buying 99¢ shares on Polymarket free money?
Buying shares at 99¢ and waiting for them to pay $1 looks like the safest trade on the board. It is a real strategy with a real name — and it pays less than cash more often than people expect, then occasionally takes the whole stake.
5 MIN READ - GUIDE
How do election prediction markets decide who won?
An election prediction market does not pay on election night, and it does not pay on the headline. It pays on whatever its rules name as the source — a set of network race calls, an official count, or, for control of a chamber, a seat tally with its own tie-break. Those rules differ from market to market, and they decide when your money comes back.
5 MIN READ - COMPARE
Polymarket vs. Kalshi — what's actually different?
Both are CFTC-designated contract markets and both sell the same instrument — a contract that pays $1 if something happens. The difference is the rail underneath, and it decides your fee, your custody, and whether you can open an account at all.
4 MIN READ - ANALYSIS
Can the AfD actually take power in Saxony-Anhalt?
On 6 September the AfD won a German state election with 43.8%, three seats short of a majority. Whether its candidate becomes Minister-President now turns on a constitutional procedure most coverage describes wrongly, and on five seats held by a party nobody expected to matter.
9 MIN READ - GUIDE
How do I manage a bankroll on prediction markets?
Most people who lose money on markets are not bad at predicting. They stake three times as much after a good day, put everything on one multi-leg ticket after a bad one, and never write down what they did — so they never find out whether they are up. Five rules fix that, and none of them is about picking better.
7 MIN READ - GUIDE
What is a Bitcoin prediction market, and how does it settle?
A Bitcoin prediction market is not a leveraged position on Bitcoin. It is a yes-or-no contract on one precisely worded price condition, settled against one named feed — and the wording is where the money is.
4 MIN READ - GUIDE
How do football prediction markets work?
A football prediction market turns a match into a set of tradeable questions. Each one has its own price, its own order book and its own settlement rule — and the rules are not the same across them.
5 MIN READ - ANALYSIS
Will the Fed hike again in October or December?
The Fed raised rates on 16 September for the first time since 2023, and 16 of 18 officials pencilled in at least one more hike this year. The market agrees there is probably another one coming. The live question is when, and the October, December and year-end boards give answers that do not fully fit together.
9 MIN READ - GUIDE
How do I deposit money into Polymarket?
Funding a prediction market account is not a card payment that clears overnight. It is a crypto transfer into a wallet that is already yours — which makes it fast, and makes the network selector the box that decides whether the money arrives at all.
4 MIN READ - GUIDE
How do I withdraw money from Polymarket?
Getting money out of a prediction market is not a bank payout with a pending status and a three-day wait. It is an on-chain transfer you authorise and nobody can reverse — which makes it fast, and makes the address field the most important box on the screen.
4 MIN READ - ANALYSIS
How to trade the oil shock after the Saudi pipeline strike
Drones hit Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline on 10 September, taking out the main route that lets Gulf crude avoid the closed Strait of Hormuz. The oil markets repriced within days. Read together, they say the crisis is expected to last but not to turn into a record-breaking spike, and that view can be held as a three-leg basket, provided you understand the two ways it loses.
9 MIN READ - ANALYSIS
What the market prices for Trump's $5,000 dividend
On 9 September Trump promised every adult citizen a $5,000 dividend if Republicans win the House and Senate. A market on whether it happens by 31 March 2027 opened the next day and trades at about 5 cents. Reading that price properly starts with what the market actually resolves on, which is not the election.
8 MIN READ - ANALYSIS
Anthropic IPO odds on four prediction markets
Four separate markets price the Anthropic listing: when it happens, who lists first, whether it is the year's largest, and what it closes at on day one. They are not four views of the same question, and the most interesting number on the board comes from reading two of them against each other.
9 MIN READ - ANALYSIS
How to hedge gold with Fed rate-hike markets
One jobs report knocked more than 2% off gold on 4 September. If you hold gold and the thing you are afraid of is the Fed, you can price that fear directly instead of guessing — and a layered hedge costs about 4% of the position rather than the 10% a single contract would.
9 MIN READ - ANALYSIS
Ukraine ceasefire ladder: pricing a window, not a date
Polymarket's Russia-Ukraine ceasefire markets are nested: October sits inside December. That structure lets you price a window of time instead of a yes-or-no, and it caps the loss at roughly 12% in both directions of being wrong.
9 MIN READ - GUIDE
Stablecoin yield: what your dollars actually earn
Converting to stablecoins stopped a loss; it did not create a gain. A dollar sitting in USDT earns zero while ordinary dollars earn 4-5% a year, and closing that gap means naming the risk you are being paid to take.
8 MIN READ - ANALYSIS
Why the House and Senate midterm markets are so far apart
Four outcomes are priced on the midterm board, but one variable sits behind all of them: how far the national swing reaches into the Senate map. Democrats lead in exactly the four Republican seats they need, and the market still calls it a coin flip — which only makes sense once you see that it is pricing one swing, not a dozen separate races.
11 MIN READ - ANALYSIS
Why the Fed market prices a hike after negative payrolls
The labour market is weakening and the market is still pricing a hike. That is not a contradiction, and it is not a mispricing. What these contracts measure is not how bad the data is — it is how a new Fed chair reacts to it, and there are two events tomorrow that will tell you.
9 MIN READ - ANALYSIS
Iran de-escalation basket: calm is priced, talks are not
The market has priced calm at around 90 cents and reconciliation at 22.5. This basket buys both, which means most of your stake goes on outcomes that are close to settled and the return lives in two contracts. Here is what each scenario pays.
8 MIN READ - GUIDE
Can you sell before a prediction market resolves?
You can sell before a prediction market resolves, at any point while the market is still trading. What decides whether that is a good idea is not the rule — it is who is on the other side of the book when you want out.
4 MIN READ - ANALYSIS
What the Strait of Hormuz markets are actually pricing
Every headline about a Hormuz deal moves these markets. None of them settle one. The reopening contracts resolve on a single figure from IMF PortWatch, and reading the prices without reading that rule is how people lose money on a view that turns out to be right.
7 MIN READ - GUIDE
How a market resolves, and when you actually get paid
Nobody at Polymarket decides who won. An outcome is proposed with money staked on it, anyone can challenge it for two hours, and only then do winning shares become redeemable for $1.
8 MIN READ - GUIDE
How to size a position
How much you put on a market matters more than which market you pick. Sizing is where most accounts are actually won or lost — and the arithmetic is simpler than people expect.
7 MIN READ - BASICS
Is it safe? Where your money actually sits
Your balance is not an entry on a company's ledger. It sits in a wallet whose keys you hold and can export at any time — which removes one whole category of risk, and leaves several others exactly where they were.
8 MIN READ - BASICS
Is Polymarket legal?
Polymarket now runs a CFTC-regulated exchange in the US alongside its international crypto venue. Several state regulators disagree that this settles the question, and outside the US the answer varies country by country.
7 MIN READ - GUIDE
Read the resolution rules before you look at the price
Most settlement surprises are not forecasting failures. You were right about what happened and wrong about what the market counted — and every one of those losses is avoidable by reading a few hundred words first.
7 MIN READ - BASICS
What is a basket, and why is it not a parlay?
A basket buys several positions in one tap, each at its own weight. Unlike a parlay, every leg settles on its own — you don't need them all to come in, and you can sell any one without touching the rest.
7 MIN READ - GUIDE
Why did my order fill at a worse price than I saw?
The price shown on a market card is usually a midpoint, and nobody trades at the midpoint. You buy at the best offer on the book — on a thin market, that gap costs far more than fees ever will.
4 MIN READ - BASICS
What is a prediction market, and how are odds set?
A prediction market lets you buy shares in an outcome. When YES trades at 62¢, the crowd is pricing that outcome at 62% — and decades of research show these prices are remarkably well calibrated.
5 MIN READ - COMPARE
Prediction markets vs. sportsbooks: the real difference
A sportsbook hides its margin inside the odds and always trades against you. On a prediction market your counterparty is another trader, the price is transparent, and you can exit a position before resolution.
6 MIN READ - GUIDE
Getting started on Polymarket from Telegram in 10 minutes
No exchange account, no app install. Your wallet is created the moment you open the mini app — this guide walks from first deposit to first position in ten minutes.
4 MIN READ - ANALYSIS
How accurate were prediction markets in 2025?
We scored every 2025 market at resolution against its final price. Markets priced above 70¢ resolved YES 83% of the time — a look at where the crowd was sharp, and where it wasn't.
7 MIN READ