Polymarket in 2026
Polymarket is the biggest prediction market in the world. You buy Yes or No shares in an outcome, priced between $0 and $1 by other traders on an order book, and each winning share pays out $1 in stablecoins. It covers elections, sports, crypto prices, the economy and culture, and it has a full esports section with match, map and total markets on CS2, League of Legends, Dota 2 and VALORANT.
There are two Polymarkets now. polymarket.com is the international, crypto-based site. Polymarket US (polymarket.us) is a separate app for US residents, run by QCX LLC as a CFTC-regulated exchange and funded in dollars. Polymarket's own terms say trading is blocked in the United States on polymarket.com and send US users to the US app.
Who can use it
Check this before anything else. Polymarket's geoblock list has three levels. Fully blocked: Iran, Syria, Cuba, North Korea and occupied parts of Ukraine. Close-only, where you can sell what you hold but not open new positions: the US, the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Poland, Australia, Brazil, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Russia and four Canadian provinces (Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta, Quebec). The Netherlands, Ireland, Japan and South Korea are close-only on the website.
Bonus
Open the site with the button on this page to sign up through Betrefs: our referral tag betrefs is in the link, as there's no code field to type it into. Polymarket's referral programme pays the person who refers you a share of your fees; it doesn't give new users a bonus. The US app is different: a referred US user gets a $25 trading credit after a $10 deposit.
Fees
Only takers pay. The fee is shares x rate x price x (1 - price), so it's highest on a 50/50 market and close to nothing near 0 or $1. The rate depends on the category: 0.07 for crypto, 0.05 for sports, economics, culture and weather, 0.04 for finance, politics and tech, and geopolitics markets are free. Polymarket charges nothing for deposits or withdrawals, though an on-ramp like MoonPay or Coinbase takes its own cut.
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Payments
Crypto in and out: Polygon and other EVM chains, Ethereum, Solana and Bitcoin, with positions settled in stablecoins.
Trust
Polymarket is run by Adventure One QSS Inc. In January 2022 the CFTC fined Blockratize Inc., the company behind Polymarket, $1.4 million for offering unregistered event markets to US users. In 2026 Nevada's Gaming Control Board sued Polymarket and the US app's operator, and won a restraining order in January and an injunction in May.
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Verdict
The deepest prediction market there is, and the best one for betting on CS2 and VALORANT matches without a bookmaker's margin. But check your country first: across much of Europe, the UK, Australia and the US you can't open new positions on polymarket.com.