How often do Polymarket users trade, and how much do they win? | Pew Research Center Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping
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East Home>Research Topics>Economy & Work>Personal Finances Short Reads | July 22, 2026 What we know about the
typical Polymarket user X Facebook Threads LinkedIn WhatsApp Mail Add Us On Google By Kaitlyn Radde (Pew Research Center
illustration; photos via Getty Images) Prediction markets are an increasingly popular way for people to trade on the
outcomes of real-world events. As of April, monthly trading volume on the two largest prediction markets – Polymarket
and Kalshi – had reached nearly $24 billion. To better understand how ordinary people use prediction markets, we
collected a sample of nearly 12,000 Polymarket accounts that placed trades on 10 specific high-volume events in early
2026. We then analyzed their publicly available trading activity over the six-week period from May 7 to June 19.
Here’s what we found. About this research This Pew Research Center analysis looks at prediction market trading
behavior on Polymarket from May 7 to June 19, 2026. Why did we do this? Pew Research Center does research to help the
public, media and decision-makers understand important topics. This research builds on our recent work on gambling and
the broader prediction economy – including trading on prediction markets, public attitudes toward sports betting and
views on the morality of gambling around the world. Learn more about Pew Research Center. How did we do this? Data on
Polymarket users primarily comes from the Polymarket user activity API, which does not include the company’s newer
U.S. platform. Kalshi, the other major prediction market platform, does not make this kind of user data available. We
collected trading activity by sampling Polymarket user “wallets” in early May 2026. We first used other Polymarket
API endpoints to identify 10 high-volume trading events across a range of topics, collecting the 4,000 most recent
trades per event. We used the 16,836 accounts that placed those trades as our sample. We refer to these accounts as
“traders” or “users” throughout, though some individuals may run multiple accounts. We then collected activity
for those accounts 15 times between May 7 and June 19, 2026. This process yielded activity for 11,989 active wallets.
The API allowed us to collect the 4,000 most recent activities per account per collection using offset pagination. Only
2% of wallets hit this limit, meaning those accounts may have made trades during our analysis period that we did not
collect. To examine the topics that users were interested in, we also recorded the events that these accounts traded on
during each data collection. We used Polymarket’s tags to sort events into broad categories, for instance nesting
“basketball” under “sports.” Overall, 1% of events fell into multiple categories, while fewer than 1% could not
be categorized. Polymarket reports prices in USD Coin (USDC), a cryptocurrency pegged to the U.S. dollar at a stable 1:1
conversion rate. How does the typical trader use Polymarket? The typical (median) Polymarket user placed a total of 46
trades across 10 active trading days during our study period. The value of the average trade was $6.50. A majority of
Polymarket users placed fewer than 100 trades over 6 weeks, with modest gains or losses % of accounts that placed __
trades over a six-week period Source: Pew Research Center analysis of trading activity by 11,989 Polymarket accounts
from May 7-June 19, 2026. PEW RESEARCH CENTER Share this chart Share on X Share on Facebook A majority of Polymarket
users placed fewer than 100 trades over 6 weeks, with modest gains or losses % of accounts that placed __ trades over a
six-week period % of accounts who placed …ShareLess than 10 trades2410-9939100-999271000 or more11% of accounts
who …ShareLost more than $10009Lost $100-100015Lost less than $10032Made less than $10026Made $100-100011Made more
than $10007 Download data as .csv Source: Pew Research Center analysis of trading activity by 11,989 Polymarket accounts
from May 7-June 19, 2026. PEW RESEARCH CENTER ChartDataDownload ImageShare However, there’s a lot of variation in
trading activity on Polymarket. About a quarter of the accounts we analyzed (24%) placed fewer than 10 trades. On the
other end of the spectrum, 11% of accounts placed 1,000 trades or more in just six weeks. When it comes to wins and
losses, the typical Polymarket user largely broke even during the six weeks we examined. The average trader spent a
little over $600 on the site, with a net loss of less than $2. More than half of traders (58%) gained or lost less than
$100. But some traders had much bigger profits and losses: 7% had a net profit of more than $1,000 over this six-week
period, while 9% lost a similar amount. How does Polymarket trading behavior differ by topic area? Polymarket offers a
wide array of topics people can trade on. But sports, politics and cryptocurrency account for nearly all trading volume
on the site. The typical Polymarket user primarily trades on a single topic. In the period we examined, the median
trader placed about three-quarters of their trades on one topic. About a quarter of users we analyzed (24%) only placed
trades on one topic. Sports traders tend to be more active than traders who focus on other topics Median number of
trades placed over a six-week period, by primary trading topic Note: Accounts are assigned to a primary topic if 75% or
more of their trades are on that topic. Source: Pew Research Center analysis of trading activity by 11,989 Polymarket
accounts from May 7-June 19, 2026. PEW RESEARCH CENTER Share this chart Share on X Share on Facebook Sports traders tend
to be more active than traders who focus on other topics Median number of trades placed over a six-week period, by
primary trading topic GroupMedian number of tradesAll traders46Sports traders69Crypto traders59Politics traders13
Download data as .csv Note: Accounts are assigned to a primary topic if 75% or more of their trades are on that topic.
Source: Pew Research Center analysis of trading activity by 11,989 Polymarket accounts from May 7-June 19, 2026. PEW
RESEARCH CENTER ChartDataDownload ImageShare Polymarket users also behave differently depending on the topic they tend
to focus on. Among users who placed at least 75% of their trades on a single topic: Sports traders were the most active,
placing an average of 69 trades across 12 trading days during our analysis period – which notably overlapped with the
NBA Finals, the World Cup and the Stanley Cup. Cryptocurrency traders placed an average of 59 trades on five active
trading days. Politics traders were the least active, placing an average of 13 trades on seven trading days. Traders who
focus on sports also tended to make slightly larger trades: $9, on average, compared with $6 for those focused on
politics and less than $4 for those focused on crypto. How do the most active Polymarket users stand out? The 11% of
Polymarket users who made at least 1,000 trades during our analysis period stand out in several ways from less-frequent
users: They make trades more regularly. On average, they made a trade on 39 of the 42 days in our study period. By
comparison, the median user made a trade on 10 of 42 days. They often take more substantial losses. The typical highly
active user lost around $140 over the study period. Overall, 33% of these users lost over $1,000 in these six weeks –
more than the share (27%) who profited a similar amount. The average individual trade for these highly active users was
around $6, similar to the typical user. Topics Personal FinancesPersonal LifeSports Share This Link: X Facebook Threads
LinkedIn WhatsApp Kaitlyn Radde is a computational social science assistant at Pew Research Center. Related short
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