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QuesnayJr | 1 month ago

I don't know how Polymarket works. Were people betting against Polymarket, or was Polymarket just making book and someone else is on the other side of the bets.

discuss

order

lxgr|1 month ago

> Is Polymarket The House?

> No, Polymarket is not the house. All trades happen peer-to-peer (p2p).

(from https://docs.polymarket.com/polymarket-learn/FAQ/is-polymark...)

TZubiri|1 month ago

> Is Polymarket The House?

This term is a bit ambiguous, and there's some nuances that make it different from both sportsbooks and poker.

They don't ever take a nominal cut, their revenue model is in holding USD deposits and making money of interest.

> No, Polymarket is not the house. All trades happen peer-to-peer (p2p). The documentation is purposefully misleading, but it's true that unlike a sportsbook, they don't take the risk of bets. It's a classic case of a blockchain company exaggerating to what extent they are on the blockchain and to what extent they are centralized and just minimally wrapping the blockchain, like when NFTs were actually a URL to an image.

Trades do NOT happen p2p, polymarket functions as an escrow, payments are sent to polymarket accounts and released by polymarket. Each prediction market does have their own contract, but Polymarket staff rules on each event through off-chain (although they are based on the wording used in the specific event).

New events are solely released by polymarket staff (although users can 'suggest' markets).

ChadNauseam|1 month ago

I think most questions on polymarket use order books now. But they used to use AMMs (where people bet against polymarket) and their FAQ says some questions still use them

lxgr|1 month ago

Were the liquidity pools backing the AMMs actually operated by Polymarket?

LeoPanthera|1 month ago

The latter. The other side now wins, in theory.