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Galaxy Research finds 69% of Polymarket retail accounts lose money
A study of 2.9 million human-paced accounts found $338.9 million in cumulative losses, while excluded automated accounts netted $246.8 million
Most people betting on the future on Polymarket are not getting paid for their foresight. A new Galaxy Research study of 2.9 million retail accounts found that 69.2% finished below break-even.
Combined, those accounts lost $338.9 million.
What Galaxy Research found
The report, published October 1, 2026, draws on on-chain data covering Polymarket’s full trading history. That history stretches back to the platform’s 2020 launch.
Galaxy defined retail accounts as those trading at a human pace. That filter separates people clicking buttons from machines that place orders faster than anyone can blink.
The typical loss was small. The median retail account lost approximately $3.
The middle 50% of accounts landed somewhere between a loss of $36.64 and a gain of $0.40.
The tails tell a sharper story. The top 1% of losers dropped as much as $4,804, while the top 1% of gainers made $3,381.
Losing makes people leave
Galaxy also tracked what traders did after a result came in. Following a loss, 15.2% of traders stopped trading entirely.
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After a win, only 6.1% walked away. That makes post-loss churn 2.5 times higher than post-win churn.
Specialists, sports fans and position size
Some 44.1% concentrated mostly on a single topic, spreading their bets across multiple markets within it.
Sports specialists posted the worst win rate in the study at 25.1%.
Traders focused on technology and science fared notably better, at 41.2%.
Position sizing showed a pattern too. Profitable traders had a median position of $13.96, compared with $10 for those who did not come out ahead.
The bots were not in the sample
Automated accounts were excluded from Galaxy’s retail analysis. Those accounts collectively netted $246.8 million in profits.
Galaxy’s analysis includes trading from before Polymarket introduced taker fees in early 2026, so the results span different fee environments.
A taker fee is a charge on orders that immediately match against existing ones, rather than waiting on the order book.
Background: how prediction markets work
Polymarket is an international prediction market. Users buy and sell shares tied to the outcome of real-world events, from elections to sports to technology milestones.
Because the platform runs on-chain, every trade leaves a public record. That transparency is what made a study covering millions of accounts possible in the first place.