Posted on: April 7, 2026, 07:17h.
Last updated on: April 7, 2026, 07:17h.
Various studies indicate retail traders are fighting uphill battles in their quests to make money on prediction markets with the latest confirming just how tough the sledding is on Polymarket.
A new study says 84.1% of Polymarket traders lose money. (image: Getty)A new study by researcher Andrey Sergeenkov points out that 84.1% of Polymarket traders are profitable, meaning less than 16% are in the green. That’s down from 40% just two years ago, according to Sergeenkov’s research.
The decline across all profit levels is driven by user growth fueled by the November 2024 US election hype and continued momentum after it. Less experienced users tend to trade less successfully,” notes the researcher.
It’s hard to make money on Polymarket. (Image: Andrey Sergeenkov)The 84.1% loser figure cited by Sergeenkov is well in excess of what was found in a 2025 study by Felix Reichenbach of Technische Universität Berlin and Martin Walther of the German International University indicating that 70% of Polymarket’s two million users have negative profit/loss.
Social Media Accounts Are Deceiving Bettors, Traders
In this dawn of the prediction markets boom, there’s a plethora of social media accounts spawning tales of traders with high accuracy rates and big wallets on platforms such as Kalshi and Polymarket. The reality is much different.
As Sergeenkov notes, just 2% of 2.5 million Polymarket traders have made more than $1,000 on the platform while just 0.32% are profitable to the tune of $10,000 or more. A mere 840 Polymarket addresses, or just 0.033% of the total, earned more than $100,000.
That lack of profitability isn’t surprising that on Polymarket, the world’s largest prediction market by volume, the average trade size is just $89 with other data points indicating 80% of traders on that platform have an average trade size of less than $500. Additionally, some studies confirm that the average Polymarket user is putting on significantly more traders than the average sports bettor, potentially overtrading to the detriment of their profit/loss tallies.
Potentially making things worse in terms of the profitability scenario are the social media storytellers leveraging their accounts for compensation from Polymarket for bringing new users to the platform.
“Polymarket recently launched a referral program offering 30% of trading fees generated by referred users, which means a wave of influencer-driven users is coming,” adds Sergeenkov.
Prediction Markets as a Job? Don’t Go There.
Many of the social media stories about unidentified folks turning small grubstakes into massive sums on Polymarket involve those traders leaving their traditional jobs to become fulltime prediction markets traders. That’s a risky bet.
As Sergeenkov says, the average US salary is $5,000 per month, but in any given month, less than 1% of Polymarket traders earn that much. The percentage of those doing so two months in a row is just a tenth of a percent and the percentages dwindle from there.
In fact, just 72 of 2.5 million Polymarket accounts made at least $5,000 in nine consecutive months while a mere 35 accounts accomplished that feat over the course of a year.
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