Advanced Market Prediction: From Practical Strategies to Avoiding Pitfalls, Learn Step-by-Step How to Uncover Opportunities with Certainty

Author: Changan I Biteye Content Team

In Biteye's previous article, we introduced the basic arbitrage logic of prediction markets. (Related reading: Deconstructing Polymarket's Five Arbitrage Schools: How Can Ordinary Players Seize Million-Dollar Opportunities? ) For advanced traders, the core of profiting from Polymarket is no longer just event prediction, but a systematic arbitrage based on the order of information transmission, contract interpretation boundaries, and probability mismatches.

While ordinary investors are getting outdated information from social media, professional traders have already profited from pricing discrepancies by monitoring the original data sources before market consensus is reached.

This article from Biteye will take you to a deeper level:

• Information delivery order: Seize the first point of contact with raw data to achieve a high-speed trading strategy similar to equation-driven news.

• Top Trader Case Study: Deconstructing the Automated Models and Contrarian Sentiment Strategies of Million-Dollar Profiters

• Avoidance Guide: Analyzing UMA's adjudication logic and contractual loopholes to mitigate the settlement risk of "facts established but adjudication failing".

I. Advanced Strategies: What are the Experts Still Playing?

Information tracing: seizing the first point in the transmission chain

The logic for predicting market price fluctuations can be simplified as follows: Real events -> Raw data stream -> Social media -> Trader decisions -> On-chain order matching -> Price changes

The sooner you get the raw data stream, the greater your price advantage.

Blogger @QuantVela : Each market on Polymarket corresponds to a top-ranked, most authoritative source of resolution, but these websites often lack publicly available APIs and have incomplete documentation. In such cases, contacting each site individually via email can potentially lead to direct access to the source data.

In prediction markets, the position of information on the timeline is very valuable. The earlier the position, the more likely it is to replicate "Equation News" and become a Vida in the prediction market.

Locking in certainty: Eliminating the time dimension of closing out the market

In market prediction, many people are obsessed with buying at the end of the trading day, taking a large position to capture a meager 1% profit when victory seems assured (99%). However, this approach can wipe out dozens of profits in an instant if a reversal occurs.

It's not that you can't buy at the end of the trading day, but you need to find the right market.

Prediction market prices are essentially pricing in probabilities. As an event nears its end, there is insufficient time to allow variables to occur.

For example:

• With one minute remaining in the football match, the leading team still maintains a two-goal advantage.

• In a League of Legends match, one team has been wiped out, while the other team's five heroes are attacking their Nexus, which has only 10% health remaining, and none of the opposing team members have respawned.

Or perhaps: the fact has already occurred and been announced, but due to procedures, the market is still in an unresolved state.

• In election prediction markets, a candidate's lead in votes is greater than the number of remaining uncounted votes.

Effective end-of-day trading is not about betting on probability, but on the physical impossibility of the game. Only when time can no longer support any variables (such as reversal or comeback) can such a small profit be truly certain.

Volatility arbitrage: capturing irrational premiums

In the 15-minute BTC price movement prediction market, buy the low-priced side when BTC price rises/falls rapidly, then hedge by buying the opposite side, ensuring the total cost is below $0.95 to lock in 5-10% profit.

For example, when the price of BTC falls, the probability of an upward move within 15 minutes may also cause an irrational pullback due to panic. The probability decreases along with the price.

At this point, buy Up at irrational prices, and then buy Down at normal prices when the market stabilizes, ensuring that the Up and Down positions are kept consistent and the total cost is less than 0.95.

This strategy is similar to the grid trading strategy, which involves buying low and selling high, without guessing the direction, and positioning in both directions to convert volatility into price differences.

Quick Tip: This strategy is only suitable for range-bound markets. In the recent one-sided downward trend, some people always bet on the probability of Up, resulting in a low correlation between probability and price, and often an Up price premium.

Market making in low-price ranges: profiting from bid-ask spreads in unpopular markets.

In Biteye's previous article, I briefly mentioned the logic of this strategy: there are arbitrage opportunities in newly launched Polymarkets or markets with poor liquidity, and you can use the bid-ask spread to place orders and earn the intermediate profit.

It should be added that:

• Only operate in markets where settlements are not immediate, to avoid being forced to liquidate positions due to rapid event outcomes.

• Focus on the low price range (1-5 cents). These price ranges typically have poor liquidity, larger price spreads, and are more likely to show significant bid-ask gaps.

The robot sees the current bid price, for example, 3 cents, and immediately buys at the bid price.

Then immediately sell at the ask price, say 4 cents. Lock in about 1 cent in price difference each time.

The essence of this strategy is to provide liquidity to a low-liquidity market and achieve profit stacking by capturing tiny bid-ask spreads at high frequency.

II. Real-world case study: How did top traders earn millions of dollars on the polymarket?

Deep Imbalance: Capturing Probability Mismatches in Market Prediction (Total Profits of $70,000)

Real-time monitoring of Binance spot or contract order book depth, focusing on order book distribution, depth, and buy/sell imbalance, allows you to predict cryptocurrency price movements within 15 minutes based on the data.

• If there are significantly more buy orders, closer to the current price, or a large accumulation of buy orders, the probability of a short-term upward move is higher.

• If there are more sell orders and a larger number of pending orders, the probability of a short-term downward trend is higher.

When the order book shows a strong enough short-term directional signal, the bot will quickly buy the undervalued side (such as buying up), and then quickly sell to close the position when the Polymarket price has corrected and returned to a level that reflects the true probability.

The essence of this strategy is to leverage leading data from highly liquid markets (Binance) to capitalize on the price discovery delays in low-liquidity markets (Polymarket).

Contrarian sentiment strategy (total profit 1.45M)

Trader anoin123, with a total profit of $1.45 million, proved an extremely lucrative logic in the prediction market: exploiting collective panic.

He specifically selected binary markets with clear deadlines, such as:

• Will the United States strike Iran before [date]?

• Will Israel strike Iran before [date]?

• High-profile events such as government shutdowns and regime changes.

When news headlines, social media panic, or tensions escalate, retail investors flock to the YES direction, pushing YES prices up to 70–95¢, while NO prices are severely depressed (usually to 5–40¢).

People tend to overestimate the probability of extreme events occurring in the short term, while underestimating the enormous inertia of maintaining the status quo in geopolitics.

He doesn't bet on the geopolitical outcome itself, but rather on the market overreacting and then returning to rationality, meaning nothing will happen.

• As the deadline approaches, and as long as the war hasn't broken out, the price of No will naturally recover over time.

• When the initial panic subsides and rationality returns to the market, he can sell when the price of No recovers to normal levels.

In short, he was betting on an irrational premium caused by market panic.

Capture the window of certainty before consensus forms (total profit $1.09M)

In our previous post on Biteye, we introduced "News Trading" within Polymarket's discretionary trading platform. This time, we'll introduce "Information Gain Trading."

Chungguskhan only bets heavily on high-certainty events, always with six-figure positions.

• Polymarket US launch: Invest $242K to buy YES (entry price approximately 50¢) and earn $380K (ROI 57%).

• Joshua vs Paul boxing match: $69K entry fee, $49¢ profit, $141K (ROI 103%).

These are not blind bets, but rather ways to profit from the price difference within the time window between when "only a few people know the information" and when "market consensus is reached".

For example, the regulator has already approved it, but the official press release will not be issued for several hours or days.

Quick Tip: Of course, insider trading and insider trading also exist in the prediction market. Take the launch of a new product as an example. A launch event typically requires coordination among multiple parties, including PR firms, media, downstream manufacturers, and logistics companies. In this collaborative network, leaks are almost inevitable. Therefore, for this type of market, it's worth paying attention to betting activity on new wallets.

III. Avoiding Pitfalls: How to Avoid Traps in the Prediction Market?

Consensus is not profit; deviation is.

In Polymarket, the formula that most easily misleads beginners is: "I think there's a 99% chance this will happen, the price is $0.99 now, so this is free money." In fact, this is often the beginning of losses.

Polymarket's probabilities reflect traders' consensus, not objective probabilities.

If the price of Yes in the Polymarket is 0.99, and the actual probability of this event occurring is 99%, then the expected return of betting on Yes is 0 instead of 1.

Quick Tip: Look for pricing errors. Only when you believe the actual probability is 90%, and the market price is only $0.70, will the 20% discrepancy be your profit.

Sell ​​on expectations to avoid holding until settlement.

The biggest risk lies in the possibility of unexpected losses during settlement due to unclear rules, unreliable sources, or disputes. It is advisable to sell early to lock in profits while the market remains emotional.

Polymarket once had a market asking: Will TikTok be banned before January 19, 2025?

In fact, on January 19, 2025, major app stores in the United States (Apple, Google) did indeed remove TikTok from their download lists, and the government officially implemented the ban. New users could not download it, and some functions were restricted for existing users. In everyone's common sense, this already constitutes a ban.

However, UMA's rules define a ban very strictly—it must mean complete inaccessibility or a complete cessation of operations.

UMA voters ultimately determined that this did not meet the strict definition of a ban. As a result, all those who bet on YES lost everything, even though they had seen the ban take effect in the physical world.

Studying settlement rules is not just about following announcements.

Before placing a bet, you must study the rules of the market.

Polymarket once had a question: "Will Monad conduct an airdrop in October?"

On October 9th, Monad officially announced that the airdrop claim website would open on October 14th. Logically, the price of a Yes airdropped by Monad in October should have increased to $1, but it didn't.

The reason is that the rules state that only when a user receives the airdrop and it is in a tradable state is it considered a "Yes". As a result, the price of "Yes" surged and then fell back after news trading.

Quick Tips: Pay close attention to "Source," "Definition," and "Timezone." Be wary of wordplay, especially verbs like "airdrop," "ban," and "launch." Make sure it refers to "announcing" or "completing a substantive action."

Interesting data

This is similar to Biteye's previous article, "According to Dune's data: Polymarket's accuracy rate in the 4 hours before settlement is 95.4%."

It was discovered that 79.6% of the markets in Polymarket were identified as No.

This is not without reason: No contains more possibilities than Yes, both mathematically and logically.

Avoid blindly following orders while ignoring the details of execution.

Seeing a top-tier wallet with a 99% win rate or huge PnL on the leaderboard shouldn't trigger a copy trade. Avoid blindly following trends in prediction markets.

Many high-win-rate wallets are essentially delayed arbitrage bots, and these profits only exist within a specific millisecond window. Blindly copying their trades only provides liquidity to these bots.

Quick Tip: Before copying trades, check the trading frequency, trade size, and historical drawdown. Copying trades from discretionary traders tends to be more effective.

In conclusion: Predicting the market and employing effective strategies are the core methods for achieving stable profits.

If Biteye's previous post gave you a basic introduction to prediction markets, then this in-depth analysis aims to uncover the trading strategies of polymarkets.

From a first-principles perspective, prediction markets are essentially about pricing the flow of information and rewarding depth of cognition.

After analyzing numerous Polymarket case studies, Biteye discovered that Polymarket is developing a unique ecosystem: it fairly rewards everyone with a strategy. Here, everyone's strategy is different.

• Some people focus on information arbitrage, making money by exploiting time differences.

• Some people monetize their knowledge by analyzing the odds of events.

• Others summarize patterns and bet on the possibility of a reversal in events.

Despite their different focuses and strategies, these winners share a common trait: they never gamble on luck, but only on the certainty of events.

Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of predicting markets is that it provides a direct path to monetizing knowledge.

May you build your own deterministic model in the probabilistic market.