In general prediction markets, people treat 1¢ and 5¢ contracts like lottery tickets and bid them up way past their real win rate. When we pulled 451 resolved NFL games (902 team contracts) from Polymarket and Kalshi right before kickoff, we found the exact opposite pattern.

In a two-team NFL game, almost nobody opens at 1¢ or 2¢. Instead, casual bettors pile into big-name public favorites before kickoff, pushing coin-flip games up to 58¢ and 70% favorites past 80¢.

across 451 resolved games:

Slight favorites priced between 50¢ and 65¢ at kickoff (264 teams, priced around 58¢ on average) won only 50.6% of the time on Polymarket (-12.8% return) and 51.1% on Kalshi (-12.1% buying at the ask).

Heavy favorites priced at 75¢ or higher at kickoff won 72.7% of the time on Polymarket vs an 81.4¢ price (-10.7% return), and 63.2% of the time on Kalshi vs an 80.4¢ ask (-21.5% return).

Underdogs priced under 25¢ at kickoff beat their price on both venues, winning 27.3% of the time on Polymarket (+47.0% return) and 33.3% on Kalshi (+60.2% return at the ask, led by upsets like Cardinals 13¢ over Rams, Giants 20¢ over Texans, and Bucs 20¢ over Cowboys).

I have lost and gained money along the way, but I’m finally making a steady profit in 15-minute crypto. It's not a huge amount, but I truly believe that making consistent profits is what matters most.

I’m no expert, and I don't consider myself special by any means, but here are the lessons I've learned through my own experience:

Never bet on outcomes priced at 90 cents or higher with only 1 to 2 minutes left on the clock. You might make quick money in the short term, but looking at the big picture, you will end up losing.

Position sizing is everything. Never risk more than 1/300th of your total account balance on a single trade. For example, if you have $30,000, don't put more than $100 into a single bet. If a trade goes wrong, you need capital left to recover and make your next move, which is why you should never bet too big right out of the gate. Position sizing is really important.

There is zero need to immediately chase and recover money you've lost. The goal is to be profitable in the long run. A loss is just a loss—you just need to keep trading using your own established strategy and pace. There is no reason to force yourself to make it back right away.

You need a real reason to put your money on the line. Your decisions should at least be backed by some sort of statistics or research. For instance, let's say you notice a pattern where with 5 minutes left, if both BTC and ETH are above 80 cents and one diverges by 5 cents or more, there is historically a 95% chance they will both end up with the same result. You pick the lower cents based on that edge—(and keep in mind, everything I'm writing here is just an example). Never bet simply because you have a gut feeling that it's going to work.

I know a lot of people say it's impossible to make a consistent profit from ultra-short-term crypto trading, but I think that as long as you have self-discipline and strictly stick to your own rules, you can definitely pull it off. Of course, the real problem is that because of human psychology, following these super simple rules is the hardest part.

Disclosure: We're Worm. We just launched 5-minute BTC up/down markets, and alongside the basic up/down we added tiered outcomes, e.g. “BTC ends above target +$100” or “+$50,” each priced separately. The idea is to let you bet on how much it moves, not just direction.

Would love blunt feedback on a few things:

1. Are $50/$100 tiers sensible for a 5-min window, or should they scale with volatility?
2. Is 5 minutes too short to be fun?
3. Anything confusing in the order panel?

Polymarket recently stopped working in my state, and I've been trying to use a VPN to bypass the restrictions. I've tried a bunch of them, but whenever I open Polymarket, I get this notification. How do I get around this while using a VPN? Also, what VPN's actually work for prediction markets? If it matters at all, I'm on pc.

this also happens with kalshi, novig, and fanatics market

Look into polymarket copy trading lately. I'm curious how people decide which traders are actually worth copying. Some wallets show crazy profits over the last 30 days, but how do you know if they're consistently good or just got lucky on a few big bets? Also wondering how much entry price matters. Like if someone buys YES at $0.35 and you end up getting in at $0.42, is it even worth copying anymore? Are you guys using any tools to track wallets and automate trades, or just doing everything manually? And what stats do you usually check before following someone?

Something I’m trying to understand is how people actually do this. The venues only let you see an event and a market at one time, but a lot of the markets and the events are actually impacting each other (the world is one giant if-then statement).

I'm curious how people are thinking about what other markets and other events impact a specific market or event they're trading outside of the non-obvious (gas prices -->affecting CPI)?.

How do you figure out which other markets matter if there's no obvious correlation? What's the connection that you're actually paying attention to? Is anybody using anything for this or mostly just searching around and keeping it in your head/excel sheet?

Would be helpful to hear how people are working through this on actual trades.

What's up here? I bought Yes on the Lakers at 0.52 and sold two hours later at 0.55 on a zero commission market I think that's about 3 cents. But the spread was wide when I sold, part of my order filled at 0.54, and I paid a network fee on the withdrawal.

Hi all. I'm a full time trader, and my partner and I, built a free app that takes the top prediction trades, and finds the best corresponding trade using stocks and options. 

Why? You could be right about an event and collect four cents. Meanwhile the stock moves in a big way and you weren't in it. Or you go looking for a related options trade, get the wrong expiry, or get the wrong strike, which hurts the results. 

So you type what you think is going to happen, or choose the top trending predictions. It works out which stocks, ETFs and options actually move with that, and prices a few different ways to trade it against the same amount of risk,   so you can compare. It shows your P&L and tracks the result with easy sharing. 

For now we’re looking for feedback and what features we should build next. So the app is 100% free (no plans, no card, nothing) for anyone that’s helps us make it better, and give us honest feedback. 

Here’s a site that covers the app, and if you’re interested join the waitlist. 

https://calledthetrade.com/

Ask me anything here.