Polymarket lets you make win, lose, or draw selections on featured sports events, but it’s not a sports betting site. So, what exactly is Polymarket, and why is it gaining popularity among American sports trading circles?
You can’t use Polymarket for sports betting, as it’s a prediction market where you can buy shares corresponding to the outcomes of uncertain events in the real world. Sports is only one of the featured categories, but it’s even more popular for predicting election outcomes or crypto prices. Here’s a comprehensive guide to using Polymarket for sports predictions.
Polymarket operates in a unique way, which becomes more understandable when you consider that it’s not a sportsbook. Considering its uniqueness, here are some benefits and drawbacks of using prediction sites like Polymarket for sports trading:
Polymarket allows users to trade win, lose, or draw shares on featured sports events.
The site determines potential winnings by share prices, not traditional betting odds.
Polymarket features significantly fewer markets than the average online sportsbook.
Besides sports, Polymarket lets traders buy and sell shares on the outcomes of real-life events, such as elections.
You don’t get typical sportsbook bonuses on Polymarket, but you can claim Liquidity Rewards.
Polymarket is a decentralized prediction market for individuals looking to predict outcomes on pretty much anything, from elections to finance and even cryptocurrency prices. It also now offers sports predictions, but through the same novel system it uses for its general prediction market.
Unlike on a typical online sportsbook, where outcomes are paired to odds that determine your potential payouts, Polymarket only lets you buy shares on the potential outcomes of sports events. There’s no house edge, but you incur fees on Polymarket when you receive rewards on winning trades.
Say there’s a football match between the Jets and the Ravens, for example. Instead of Polymarket assigning odds to win and lose for each side, the prediction trading market site sells the shares for each of the outcomes for various prizes, allowing you to settle each share for $1 if the game ends as you predicted. The price of a share correlates inversely with the likelihood of the outcome it represents.
In short, the Polymarket prediction market platform doesn’t use odds; it uses prices to represent the probability of an outcome. If, for example, the shares for Ravens to win the Jets vs. Ravens game cost $0.40, the probability of them winning is 40%, and you can buy as many of those shares as you want, provided they’re available. Traders buying shares for the Jets to win at $0.60 balance the market, allowing you to redeem each of your shares for $1 if the Ravens end up winning.
So, Polymarket isn’t a sportsbook. The buying and selling activities exclusively determine the prices of Polymarket sports event contracts (share), so the community determines the potential winnings on any sports prediction. Here’s a simple table showing how Polymarket differs from a typical sportsbook:
| Polymarket | Online sportsbook |
|---|---|
| Liquidity rewards | Sports betting bonuses |
| Share prices | Odds |
| Features a wide range of real-life events | Limited to sports selections |
| Community-driven | The house sets the odds |
Yes, we got an exclusive Polymarket promo code for new traders that gives you a 100% deposit match up to $20. New traders simply need to sign up through one of our links and use our exclusive promo code SPIN to claim 100% deposit match of up to $20.
With this welcome bonus, new traders can start exploring all of the Polymarket sports prediction markets, including the NBA, UFC, Soccer, and Super Bowl winner markets.
Polymarket also offers something called Liquidity Rewards, which are paid out when you place trades on featured prediction markets on Polymarket. To make rewarding trades easier to find, the site features a “Rewards” page with all orders that qualify for rewards.
Your order book will display a clock icon in front of all orders currently accumulating rewards from your portfolio. You’ll receive your Polymarket rewards directly in your balance every midnight when they cumulatively reach $1. Note that the program doesn’t automatically reward all orders on qualifying events; you must buy contracts within the spread to receive a bonus.
Since you can’t participate in sports betting on Polymarket, its sports section uses a different model than you’d encounter at the average online sportsbook. It understandably has unique features that generally don’t come standard with a sportsbook. Here are some features we discovered about Polymarket:
Sports isn’t the only prediction market on Polymarket. Interestingly, the first few markets on the site weren’t even about sports; the first questions were actually about COVID-19 restrictions in New York City. The site started to blow up during the 2020 US general elections, reaching its peak of popularity in the recent 2024 US elections.
Today, it features numerous prediction markets covering politics, finance, cryptocurrency, geopolitics, tech, culture, earnings, the economy, and elections, among others. The most popular remains the Polymarket election trading market, with the site exploding in popularity each time a major election is held in the United States.
The site exclusively accepts cryptocurrency payments, so you’ll have to connect your wallet to fund your account and claim rewards. If you’re not used to crypto wallets, you can fund your account using your credit or debit card through MoonPay. Simply click “Buy USDC” from your Polymarket account and follow the prompts to purchase and fund your account with USDC.
Polymarket has apps for Android and iOS, as well as a web app you can use on both smartphones and laptops. The Polymarket app makes the prediction market seamless to use across devices, as you can purchase shares on your computer, track their performance on your smartphone, and pick up where you left off on your laptop, all while maintaining an interface that looks and feels great.
Unlike traditional online sportsbooks, Polymarket is decentralized, as there’s no house setting odds for featured events. The equivalent of odds on Polymarket are the share prices, which are wholly determined by traders trading them on the site. What’s more, Polymarket uses a transparent, community-based system to determine what events it features to ensure there’s enough community interest to balance the market.
Polymarket doesn’t offer promotions like a typical sportsbook, but it has liquidity rewards for traders who purchase shares within a defined spread on select events. You can check out featured events on the Rewards page and buy shares within the indicated spread to receive daily rewards when you accumulate at least $1.
Polymarket isn’t a sports betting site, but it allows you to make win, draw, or lose predictions on select sports competitions. It doesn’t work like the typical online sportsbook; there are no sportsbook promotions or betting odds on Polymarket, for example. For a decentralized, community-driven, crypto-powered site offering several sports prediction markets in the US, trading on sports events with Polymarket is worth checking out.
Sign up for Polymarket using the banners on this page to claim an exclusive welcome bonus using our promo code SPIN for a $20 deposit match bonus. Select the Sports category from the header and browse through the numerous sports competitions to buy Polymarket sports event contracts.
No, you can not. Polymarket is a prediction market, so instead of betting on set odds, you buy event contracts that you can redeem for $1 each if your prediction hits.
Polymarket is a prediction market that offers shares on different possible outcomes of a future event. If the corresponding outcome happens, it settles each share for $1 at maturity, allowing you to keep the difference as your reward. It applies this model to several categories, such as elections, crypto prices, and, of course, sports.
Polymarket’s sports prediction section doesn’t use betting markets like a typical online sportsbook. Instead, it sells Home, Draw, and Away shares that fluctuate in prices depending on live occurrences during the sports event. Consequently, the available Polymarket sports markets are significantly fewer than what you’d encounter at a typical sportsbook, with most games only featuring standard Win, Draw, and Lose shares.
No. Polymarket only accepts deposits and withdrawals in cryptocurrency, so you’ll need to connect your crypto wallet address to fund your account and buy shares on trending events. If you’re unfamiliar with crypto wallets, you can purchase USDC through MoonPay using your credit and debit cards to bypass the extra step of linking a crypto wallet.
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