WSJ: 0.1% of Polymarket Players Capture Most Profits as Over 70% of Users Lose Money

The 2026 FIFA World Cup, hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico, also served as a large-scale test of crypto-based prediction markets. Polymarket lets traders buy and sell contracts tied to match outcomes, with prices acting as market-implied probabilities. The tournament’s global reach, heavy betting interest and transparent wallet data made the platform a useful case study in whether crowd forecasts translated into profits — and how evenly those gains were shared.

By the tournament’s conclusion on July 19, 2026, more than $474 million had been wagered before matches on Polymarket. The contracts posted an aggregate hit rate of 62.97% and about $28.88 million in net profit. Returns were sharply concentrated, however: the 10 most profitable accounts captured more than half of total gains, while one wallet earned $8.25 million from just two matches. The figures suggest a small number of large winning positions substantially lifted the market’s average performance.

Polymarket allows traders to use crypto assets to wager on outcomes ranging from elections to economic events, with contract prices often treated as real-time measures of collective expectations. The decentralized prediction market relies heavily on transparent blockchain records and wallet activity to establish credibility, making signs of trading on nonpublic information or coordinated bets a significant test of market integrity and a potential focus for regulators.

A Bloomberg Businessweek analysis flagged about $200 million of Polymarket trading during the first half as potentially linked to insider activity. The top 1% of profitable accounts captured more than half of all gains, while over 50% of winning wallets were created within 24 hours before placing their bets. Some traders also appeared to split positions across multiple related wallets before withdrawing proceeds through Coinbase, intensifying scrutiny of the platform’s fairness.

Polymarket is a prediction-market platform where users trade on the outcomes of political, economic and public events. It has expanded its regulated U.S. operations in recent years. The revenue surge could help support its pursuit of a $15 billion valuation and intensify its competition with regulated rival Kalshi.

By the sixth week after the launch of its U.S. exchange, Polymarket’s projected annualized revenue had exceeded $1 billion, indicating that the new market quickly boosted trading and fee income. Although reports did not disclose the exact launch date or weekly revenue, the milestone has become an important indicator of prediction markets’ accelerating move into the mainstream.

Polymarket is a prediction market where users trade crypto assets based on the outcomes of events, attracting customers with contracts tied to politics, sports and other topics. A Wall Street Journal investigation said the platform appeared to have paid college content creators to execute sham trades on highly realistic simulation sites, presenting fabricated profits as genuine betting experiences. The allegations raise questions about advertising disclosures and consumer trust.

The investigation found more than 1,000 promotional videos showing fake bets and profits, even though the creators had not assumed the risks claimed in the footage. Polymarket said it would conduct a comprehensive review of the content. During the 2026 World Cup, a “mystery wallet” was also said to have placed highly accurate bets and made NT$24 million in arbitrage profits, renewing scrutiny of whether the platform uses misleading promotions to attract users.

Polymarket is a prediction market where participants use crypto assets to bet on the outcomes of political, economic and other events. As the platform’s influence and trading volume have grown, scrutiny has intensified over whether users generally make money. Bloomberg examined wallet data and found returns were highly concentrated, suggesting a small group of whales may dominate liquidity and the distribution of profits.

Bloomberg’s analysis of active Polymarket wallets since the beginning of 2025 found that more than 100,000 wallets had each lost at least $1,000. Just 5% of wallets generated 75% of trading volume, while fewer than 1% captured about half of all profits. Most gains flowed to a small number of the highest-volume accounts. The number of wallets does not necessarily equal the number of actual users.

Prediction markets use trading prices to reflect the probability of events and have long been viewed as an application of the “wisdom of crowds.” After analyzing Polymarket data, a Yale University research team found that market accuracy comes mainly from a small group of informed traders. The finding suggests that price discovery may depend on specialized information rather than the collective judgment of most participants.

The study examined trading records from 2023 to 2025 and found that about 3% of participants captured roughly 30% of market profits, while 67% of traders absorbed all losses. It did not disclose the total dollar value of profits. Very few traders consistently outperformed random chance. When most winners moved on to predict different events, their performance clearly reverted to the norm or even turned negative.

Polymarket and Kalshi are prediction markets where users trade contracts tied to the outcomes of political, economic and other events, with prices often viewed as crowd-sourced probability estimates. Such platforms have expanded rapidly in recent years, but whether ordinary participants have fair access to information and profit opportunities has become a major issue for market transparency and consumer protection.

A new analysis found that as many as 99.96% of ordinary users on Polymarket and Kalshi effectively do little more than provide market liquidity, while profits are concentrated among roughly 0.04% of traders alleged to possess inside information. The analysis also criticized the platforms for expanding their businesses by exploiting the economic anxiety of working-class people. Available information did not disclose the publication date or the sums involved.

Polymarket is a crypto-settled prediction market where users trade on the outcomes of political, sporting and financial events. Although such platforms have become popular crypto applications, whether they can replace full-time employment income remains unproven. Consumer Shield estimates the average US monthly salary at about $5,220, providing a benchmark for full-time income.

Cointelegraph reported on April 9, 2026, that Andrey Sergeenkov analyzed data covering April 2024 through April 1, 2026. Nearly 1% of traders earned more than $5,000 in a single month, but only 0.1% reached that threshold again the following month and just 0.015% did so for four consecutive months. Only 840 wallets had accumulated profits exceeding $100,000.

Polymarket is an onchain prediction market built on Polygon where users trade on the outcomes of political, economic, technology and other events. The platform generates revenue from trading fees. Its revenue surge suggests prediction markets may become a sustainable crypto finance business rather than relying solely on election-driven interest, though regulatory pressure in the United States, Europe and Argentina remains a major risk.

On March 30, 2026, Polymarket expanded taker fees beyond crypto and sports to markets covering finance, politics, economics, culture, weather and technology. DeFiLlama data showed daily fees rising from about $363,000 to more than $1 million on both April 1 and April 2, putting the early annualized estimate at about $338 million. Fees totaled $7.1 million in the first week of the second quarter, accounting for 96.8% of all onchain prediction-market fees.

Polymarket is a blockchain-based decentralized prediction market where contract prices are generally treated as the probability of an event occurring. Research found that the platform may not adjust prices simultaneously when markets have complex logical relationships, such as mutual exclusivity or inclusion. Quantitative traders can exploit those discrepancies by combining positions to lock in spreads, exposing a structural efficiency gap in Polymarket's pricing mechanism.

Research findings released as of July 2026 showed that traders used Bregman projections and the Frank-Wolfe algorithm to identify inconsistent probability pricing across Polymarket contracts and construct approximately risk-free arbitrage portfolios. The model estimated that such strategies generated close to $40 million in cumulative profit over the past year, indicating that the mispricing was not a short-lived anomaly confined to a single market.