How Does Polymarket Work? Orders, YES/NO Shares, Resolution & Fees
Polymarket is a prediction market platform where you buy YES or NO shares on whether an event will happen—elections, sports, crypto, and more. Trading runs on an order book (limit orders at your chosen price). When the event is known, the market resolves and the winning side pays $1 per share. Most markets have no trading fees. This guide gives you the essentials; for orders, fees, liquidity, and rewards in detail, see our full trading guide. To find top wallets to copy, use the HolyPoly leaderboard.
What is Polymarket?
Polymarket is a prediction market—a place where you trade on the outcomes of future events. You don’t buy stocks or crypto; you buy contracts that pay out if an event happens (YES) or doesn’t (NO). Markets cover politics, sports, crypto, culture, and more. Prices are set by supply and demand on an order book, and when the event resolves, winning shares pay $1 each and losing shares expire. For a deeper intro to prediction markets, see what are prediction markets.
How do I buy and sell on Polymarket?
You trade by placing limit orders: you choose a price (e.g. 65¢ for YES) and your order sits in the order book until someone is willing to trade at that price. Orders can fill in full or in part. There’s no “market order” that instantly hits the best available price—you always set a price. The order book on each market page shows current bids (buy orders) and asks (sell orders), so you can see depth and where to place your order.
To buy YES or NO, you enter the price and size; to sell, you offer your shares at a price. You can cancel open orders anytime. For more on limit orders, partial fills, and sports-market rules, see our how trading works on Polymarket guide.
What are YES and NO shares?
Every Polymarket market is binary: one outcome is YES (the event happens), the other is NO (it doesn’t). You buy YES or NO at the current market price. The price of YES (e.g. 60¢) is the market’s implied probability that the event will happen (60%). YES and NO prices usually add up to about 100¢ (one side pays $1 at resolution, the other $0).
Example: YES vs NO payouts
Market: “Will X win?” YES at 60¢, NO at 40¢.
| You buy | Price | If event happens | If event doesn’t happen |
|---|---|---|---|
| YES | 60¢ | $1 per share (profit 40¢) | $0 |
| NO | 40¢ | $0 | $1 per share (profit 60¢) |
How do I know when I get paid? (Resolution)
You get paid when the market resolves—i.e. when the real-world outcome is known (e.g. election result, game final score). Polymarket uses an oracle (UMA Optimistic Oracle) to determine the result: someone proposes an outcome, others can dispute, and once the result is final, winning tokens become redeemable for $1 each. You then redeem them for USDC; losing tokens expire worthless.
Undisputed resolution typically takes about 2 hours after a proposal; disputed cases can take several days. For the full flow—proposal, challenge period, DVM vote, redeeming—see how Polymarket’s oracle and resolution work.
How much does Polymarket cost? (Fees)
Most Polymarket markets have no trading fees. There are no Polymarket fees to deposit or withdraw USDC (though intermediaries like Coinbase or MoonPay may charge). The only exception is 15-minute crypto markets, which charge a taker fee; that fee is used to fund maker rebates and encourage liquidity. So for politics, sports, and most other markets, you trade at the prices you see with no extra fee. For exact fee rules and rewards (holding, liquidity, maker rebates), see our trading guide and Polymarket Help.
What should I do next?
Once you understand how Polymarket works, you can trade on your own or use data to copy strong performers. The HolyPoly leaderboard ranks Polymarket wallets by win rate and PnL so you can find traders worth copying. Each wallet has a playbook—copy-ready market, side, entry, size, and exit—so you can place the same trades on Polymarket. For a step-by-step, see how to copy trade on Polymarket and how to use HolyPoly.