Those TikToks and Reddit posts pitching prediction markets as an easy side gig? Bloomberg reports the data tells a very different story. In an analysis of Polymarket, one of the biggest event-betting platforms, reporters Carolyn Silverman, Nathaniel Popper, and Marie Patino found that more than 100,000 accounts lost at least $1,000 between January 2025 and April 2026—nearly double the number that cleared that much. Overall, everyday users collectively shed $131 million. Even among casual users who made or lost less than $10, most still wound up in the red. "You'd be surprised how many of them did not anticipate that you would see such concentrated gains," says University of Toronto professor Charles Martineau. "That so few make money."
So who's actually making money? Automated bots, it seems. Using a method developed by academic researchers, Bloomberg identifies a small cluster of high-frequency, bot-like wallets that trade far more often, across more markets, and tend to enter positions earlier at better prices. Those accounts—about 800 of which cleared more than $100,000 apiece—scooped up roughly $131 million in profits, essentially mirroring retail traders' losses. Researchers say individual traders often guess outcomes correctly but still lose money because they trade late and accept worse odds.
The findings undercut the image of prediction markets as simple peer-to-peer betting systems where ordinary users can outsmart the crowd. Bloomberg reports that what increasingly resembles a decentralized sportsbook is instead dominated by sophisticated market-makers and automated trading strategies similar to those used on Wall Street. Read the full story.
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