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Nothing Ever Happens: Polymarket bot that always buys No on non-sports markets

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Re: Nothing Ever Happens: Polymarket bot that always buys No on non-sports markets

#101

Post by JumpCrisscross »

conductr wrote: post #58
nkrisc wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what markets like Polymarket boil down to. Normies can't win. Some will, of course, but that's just chance and there's no way if ensuring it's you. It's really no different than a casino: if you ever find yourself with more money than you walked in with, cash out and leave. Best strategy for most people though is to simply not participate and you'll break even.

Except, the thing is, a decent portion of the population enjoys throwing money away in casinos. If they feel a similar level of enjoyment/entertainment from this type of market, then it's no different and they're playing for a non-financial purpose that your calculus isn't pricing in. Maybe a stretch but theoretically, if they enjoy it enough, it can serve as a much cheaper alternative to a casino and thus could actu…

> If they feel a similar level of enjoyment/entertainment from this type of market, then it's no different

If Polymarket were regulated like a casino, I’d actually have no problem with it.

Re: Nothing Ever Happens: Polymarket bot that always buys No on non-sports markets

#102

Post by yyurgenson »

tekno45 wrote: post #18

https://x.com/sterlingcrispin/status/2043723823678382254 They admit no returns. But it does seem like a fun project and nowhere does it say anything about returns or profits so not scammy imo just funny meme backed code

It must be true that more markets resolve to no than yes because many markets are linked and only have one winner. (ie. if there are 10 people in the race for who will be the next president, 9 will resolve to no)

Re: Nothing Ever Happens: Polymarket bot that always buys No on non-sports markets

#103

Post by JumpCrisscross »

withinrafael wrote: post #77

Very confusing. Polymarket doesn't allow US use/users. How are folks in the US participating on Polymarket? (VPNs and the like reportedly don't help either due to KYC policies.)

> Polymarket doesn't allow US use/users. How are folks in the US participating on Polymarket?

Same way Binance did [1]. Assuming they wouldn’t get charged.

[1] https://www.binance.com/en/square/post/362592428897

Re: Nothing Ever Happens: Polymarket bot that always buys No on non-sports markets

#104

Post by gowld »

kristopolous wrote: post #93
pinkmuffinere wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 73% of all polymarkets do resolve to No though. I bet the average price for a no bet across these markets is 73 cents.

Why would outcomes match perceptions? The whole premise of gambling is that they don't

The whole premise of prediction markets is that the few people whose perception do match outcomes make bets to push the money-weighted average perception toward outcomes. If perceptions still don't match outcomes at that point, average return is 0 minus transactions, with high variance.

Re: Nothing Ever Happens: Polymarket bot that always buys No on non-sports markets

#105

Post by fooker »

fer wrote: post #89
fooker wrote: post #52

Don’t be gullible enough to fall for this bad math. Say 70% of the time it resolves to ‘no’, you still don’t make money by blindly choosing ‘no’. Guess why? Hint: This strategy is also described with the macabre analogy: picking up pennies in front of a steamroller. Do you want to pick up pennies in front of a steamroller?

Whether it's pennies in front of a steamroller will depend on the entry price, EV, time left to resolution and many other variables. Though I agree it's bad math, even if 70% resolve to no, there's a high variance among all of them, and to know whether it's a good bet or not... you have to do your DD on that particular market. Even if you follow the Kelly criterion, randomly choosing bets will probably tank your bank…

> Whether it's pennies in front of a steamroller will depend on […] many other variables.

No, all these variables cancel out.

If you were picking and choosing, yes. But this approach is basically betting no on all the markets.

The textbook explanation of this is the central limit theorem, proving this mathematically is a bit more involved for power-law systems like this but it’s empirically valid.

Re: Nothing Ever Happens: Polymarket bot that always buys No on non-sports markets

#106

Post by gowld »

m-hodges wrote: post #13
throwaway2027 wrote: post #5

Already priced in.

The author also noted: > yes this has to buy below 0.73 long term, the bot has a configurable ceiling set at 0.65 and checks for new markets buying closer to .5 https://x.com/sterlingcrispin/status/2043685362812461436

That presumes that there are people selling into new markets at 0.5 without thinking about the actual odds.

Re: Nothing Ever Happens: Polymarket bot that always buys No on non-sports markets

#107

Post by raincole »

traderj0e wrote: post #94
raincole wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 73% of all polymarkets do resolve to No though. I wonder what it means exactly. Typical Polymarket looks like this: X happens before May. [Yes][No] X happens before June. [Yes][No] X happens before July. [Yes][No] ... So even if X ended up happens in December, it's still 12.5% Yes and 87.5% No?

That's one event containing three markets, each yes/no. And in a way each market is two separate markets, buy/sell yes and buy/sell no, but they mirror each other.

I understand that. That's not my question tho. I am asking for the exact meaning of the 73% number.

Re: Nothing Ever Happens: Polymarket bot that always buys No on non-sports markets

#108

Post by _3u10 »

krashidov wrote: post #99

Isn't this just picking up pennies on an active railroad track? You'll win small bets and then get run over once a long tail event completely wipes you out.

If you bet it all on one event yes, otherwise long tail just loses your bet. Downside risk is limited to your bet.

Re: Nothing Ever Happens: Polymarket bot that always buys No on non-sports markets

#109

Post by achandra03 »

krashidov wrote: post #99

Isn't this just picking up pennies on an active railroad track? You'll win small bets and then get run over once a long tail event completely wipes you out.

I don't think the author is trying to pretend this is some sophisticated strategy you should actually use (note the chudjak in the image on github)

Re: Nothing Ever Happens: Polymarket bot that always buys No on non-sports markets

#110

Post by traderj0e »

traderj0e wrote: post #35
cordwainersmith wrote: post #32

The contrarian bet is fun but I wonder how it actually holds up. Prediction markets do tend to overprice dramatic outcomes, so "always bet no" isn't as dumb as it sounds. Would love to see real P&L over a few months, not just the thesis.

I've backtested this kind of strategy, and it had a good return (like 100% APR), but then I realized it was cheating by knowing when things are going to resolve. Often times it's not clear. Your return depends a lot on how quickly you can get your money out. I never got around to trying a strat that doesn't know the resolution time, which actually has to be manual cause it takes some judgement to pick things that you…

Forgot to add, I wet-ran the non-sports strat once with $100 and lost like $5 net across the month. Not enough diversification like I said, so yeah maybe I'd make $6 the next month. I could only find like 10 things that met all the criteria: ≥90c price, low spread, thick enough ask ($5?), not sports, not related to certain topics that I thought were rigged (eg Mr Beast, Trump saying keywords in speech), likely resolving within a week. Some of them also weirdly took longer to resolve than the title suggested.
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