Straight answers to the questions traders ask before, during, and after their first trade. If something isn't covered here, the answer probably lives on the How It Works page.
Polymarket is a prediction market. You trade shares tied to the outcome of real-world events - elections, sports, crypto prices, economic data, and more. Each share pays $1 if the outcome resolves your way, and $0 if it doesn't. The prices between those two extremes are what makes prediction markets useful: a share trading at 65¢ tells you the market is putting a 65% probability on that outcome.
It's a category of its own. Prediction markets share some features with both - you put capital at risk on an uncertain outcome - but the underlying mechanic is closer to a financial derivative than a casino game. You're trading against other participants, the price reflects probability, and the rewards go to those whose forecasts are more accurate than the consensus. People who do well at it tend to treat it as a research-driven activity, not a recreational one.
Polymarket is available to traders in most jurisdictions worldwide. Availability depends on local regulation in your country or region. The signup flow checks eligibility before you fund the account.
Prices come from a live order book of buy and sell offers placed by traders. Polymarket does not set the line - the participants do. When demand on one side outweighs the other, the price moves until it finds a balance. The number on the screen is the most recent trade or the best standing offer, not an estimate from the platform.
A market order fills at the best price the order book is offering right now. Fast, but you take whatever the book gives you. A limit order rests on the book at a price you specify and waits for someone to match it. Slower, but you control the entry price. Use market orders for liquid books, limit orders when you want a specific level.
Yes. As long as there are bids in the order book, you can sell your shares back into the market at any time before resolution. Most active traders close positions early when the price moves their way, rather than waiting for the event to play out.
A share at 35¢ means the market believes there's roughly a 35% chance of that outcome being correct. The two sides of a binary market always sum to $1: if Yes is 35¢, No is 65¢. If you can find a market where your own probability estimate is meaningfully different from the price, that's where the edge lives.
Polymarket does not take a per-trade fee or a spread on standard market activity. You pay the network fee for the blockchain you're transacting on - that goes to validators, not to the platform. There are no monthly fees, account fees, or withdrawal fees from Polymarket itself.
You fund a wallet you control with stablecoin. You can transfer stablecoin directly to your wallet address, or use one of the integrated on-ramps to convert from fiat. Once the network confirms the transaction, the funds are available to trade with - usually within minutes.
A withdrawal is a single on-chain transfer from your wallet to whatever address you specify. No holding period, no approval queue, no minimum balance. The network fee for that transfer is the only cost involved.
The minimum is typically a few dollars per trade, set by the market itself rather than the platform. Most traders find that meaningful position sizes start somewhere above the minimum, but the floor is low enough that you can test the workflow without committing real capital.
Each market has its resolution rules published before it opens. The rules name the data source - an official ruling, a published statistic, a government feed - and specify how edge cases are handled. When the event happens, the market settles against that source. The contract pays out automatically: $1 per winning share, $0 for losing shares.
Any participant can flag a market and submit evidence during a review window. The decision applies the published resolution rules of that specific market. Because settlement happens on-chain, the full record - the trades, the proposed resolution, the final decision - is auditable by anyone.
If an event is cancelled or becomes unresolvable, the market is voided according to its published cancellation rules. Funds are returned to participants based on their net position. The handling is spelled out before you place any trade so there are no surprises.
In a self-custody wallet that you control. Polymarket does not hold trader balances. The keys to your wallet are yours, which means no one can freeze your funds and no one can withdraw on your behalf - including the platform.
Self-custody is powerful, but the trade-off is that losing your credentials means losing access to the funds in that wallet. Treat your wallet seed or login the same way you'd treat the keys to a safe. Write down recovery information, store it somewhere you can find again, and don't share it.
The contracts that handle settlement and resolution are deployed on a public blockchain and can be inspected by anyone with a block explorer. Trade records, payouts, and resolution events are all on the public ledger.
The signup flow takes a few minutes. You provide basic information, complete the eligibility check for your region, and set up your wallet. Once that's done, you can fund the account and start trading the same day.
The How It Works page goes deeper on the mechanics of trading, resolution, and settlement. If a question is more specific - about a particular market, a particular trade, or your particular account - those questions get handled through the in-app support channel once you're signed in.
Open an account, place a small trade, and the rest of the FAQ will make sense in five minutes.