About 84.1 percent of traders on prediction-market platform Polymarket failed to make profits. On April 17, blockchain outlet Cryptopolitan reported that only a small number of users actually made money even in prediction markets where trades worth tens of billions of dollars take place.

An analysis by Andrey Sergeenkov, released in April 2026, showed that fewer than 1 in 6 traders made profits. About 40 percent of traders were profitable two years ago, but the share of losses has recently risen sharply. Sergeenkov pointed to a surge in new users who joined around the November 2024 U.S. presidential election.

Profits were concentrated among a small group. Arizona Democratic Representative Yassamin Ansari criticised Polymarket and Kalshi as casinos where wealthy and powerful people become the house and everyone else becomes chips. Ansari based her claim on an on-chain analysis by blockchain researcher DeFi Oasis in December 2025. The analysis found that less than 0.04 percent of Polymarket wallet addresses took more than $3.7 billion, or over 70 percent, of total realised profits. The ratio does not represent the share of all profitable users, but the share of the top group that captured most profits.

Sergeenkov's analysis put the share of losses higher than earlier research. A 2025 study by Felix Reichenbach and Martin Walter estimated the share of losses at about 70 percent. Sergeenkov said the difference came from reflecting wallet splitting and merging.

Actual profit levels were also limited. Of the 2.5 million wallets analysed, only 2 percent had cumulative profits above $1,000. The share above $10,000 was 0.32 percent, and 840 wallets, or 0.033 percent of the total, earned at least $100,000. Polymarket's average trade amount was $89, and 80 percent of traders did not place bets averaging more than $500.

Profits large enough to replace regular income were also rare. Only 0.98 percent of traders earned about $5,000, the level of an average monthly U.S. salary, even for a single month. Only 35 out of 2.5 million achieved this for 12 consecutive months.

The analysis shows that even as prediction markets have grown quickly, the profit structure is concentrated among a small number of users. That is also why discussions on protecting individual users are growing as trading volumes expand and institutional money continues to flow in.