Most Traders on Polymarket Are at a Loss, with Only a Few High-Frequency Trading Bots Profiting

BlockBeats News, April 29th, according to Bloomberg data, on the Polymarket platform, the loss amount of over 100,000 accounts is at least $1,000, almost twice the number of accounts that reached the same amount in profit. At the same time, a group consisting of about 823 highly active accounts (with extremely high daily trading volume, classified as BOTS) collectively realized about $131 million in profit. In addition to this group of highly active BOTS, all other traders overall lost $131 million.

The report points out that in the prediction markets with an annualized trading volume of over $50 billion and continuously growing, they are currently dominated by a small number of automated programs. For example, on Polymarket, only about 5% of the suspected BOT wallets contribute to 75% of the platform's trading volume. These BOTS engage in high-frequency arbitrage trading between different markets, entering earlier and at better prices, thus achieving higher returns. In contrast, ordinary traders, even if they predict the trend correctly, often experience unfavorable price execution due to trade lag and end up with losses.

A study of recent market trends found that among traders analyzing sentiment and geopolitical events on platforms like Polymarket, 68.8% of them have been in a losing position since 2022. The data also shows that the group of users with the most losses is more focused on trading activity around extreme price levels (odds below 10% or above 90%), while the top earners have the lowest proportion of trades in that range.