PolySouq invites you to add friends and "compete with them" — but a duel is not a private wager between the two of you, and it is not extra money. It is a display layer in the interface that pairs your position with your friend's whenever the two of you take opposite outcomes in the same market. Both of you stay inside the shared parimutuel pool alongside everyone else, and your payout is always computed by the pool formula — never out of your friend's pocket: your stake × (1 + losing pool ÷ winning pool × 0.9), with a 10% commission taken from the losing pool only. This guide covers how to build a friends list, the "friends predicting this event" panel inside the event page, how a duel comes into existence, what the Awaiting Result, Won and Lost statuses mean after settlement, invite links that carry your referral code, and how all of it connects to the leaderboard in prediction markets and event trading. The money is real (USDC on the Polygon network), and losing your entire staked amount is possible.
PolySouq encourages users to invite friends and "compete with them," and that phrase is usually taken to mean something it does not mean. A duel in prediction markets is not a private financial contest between you and your friend, not a side deal, and not an extra amount pulled from your balance the moment your friend accepts a challenge. It is — precisely — a way of displaying things: when you and a friend take opposite positions inside the same market, the interface picks up that opposition, pairs the two positions, and shows them to you as a head-to-head.
The financial substance does not change at all. You, your friend, and everyone else who took part in that market are inside one shared parimutuel pool. Stakes are pooled on each outcome, and at settlement the people on the correct outcome split the losing pool in proportion to their own stakes. Your payout comes from that pool, not from your friend's wallet, and there is no counterparty taking the other side of your position. If you want the foundation before going further, our piece on how prediction markets work is the right starting point.
This distinction is not a matter of wording. Anyone who believes a duel is a two-person wager will build the wrong expectations about the size of their return: they picture "my friend's $500 becomes mine if I'm right," when in reality that friend's stake goes into the losing pool and is split — after a 10% commission — among everyone who was on the correct outcome, in proportion to their stakes. Your share of it may be large or tiny depending on the size of the two pools, not on who your opponent happens to be.
By the same logic, "beating your friend" changes nothing about what you collect. If the duel resolves in your favour, your payout was already determined by the pool formula; had you never been paired with anyone, the payout would be identical. A duel is therefore purely social and motivational: it makes event trading more enjoyable and easier to follow, and adds no new financial dimension whatsoever.
Before any duel can appear, you need a friend graph — a network of confirmed friendships inside PolySouq. The mechanics work the way you would expect from any social platform: you send a friend request using the "add friend" button, and the friendship only exists once the other person accepts. The relationship is mutual by design, so nobody lands on your list one-sidedly.
That design is deliberate, and mostly for privacy reasons. The friends panel inside an event page reveals your friends' positions, and it would be unacceptable for a stranger to see what you are doing in prediction markets simply because they added you. Mutual acceptance is the gate that decides who sees your activity and whose activity you see.
In practice, the friend graph grows along two paths: a direct in-app request, or an invite link you share off-platform that carries your personal referral code — which we cover in a later section and explain in full in our guide to inviting friends and the referral programme. The second path is the more common one among groups following a specific event, because it drops the new friend straight onto that event instead of leaving them to hunt for it.
If you are at the very start and have not opened an account yet, read opening an account and placing your first prediction first, and build your friends list afterwards; a duel with no real position in a market simply never comes into being.
The interface that makes the competition tangible is the friends panel that appears inside the event page. Open any market — a match in the sports section, a question about the TASI index, or an event in crypto — and the panel lists the friends who have taken a position in that specific event, and which outcome each of them is standing on.
The value of that panel is that it turns an abstract number into context. Seeing that three of your friends lined up behind "yes" while you chose "no" is powerful psychological information — and a trap at the same time. The panel shows stances, not analysis, and your friends are not necessarily right. The real danger here is drifting along with the majority inside your own small circle instead of standing on your independent probability estimate.
The healthy rule is to form your view first, then look at the panel. Read the price, extract the implied probability from it as we explain in reading prices and probabilities, compare your estimate against what the market reflects, and only then decide. After that, let the friends panel add the social dimension — never let it make the decision on your behalf.
Note too that the panel cuts both ways: your positions are visible to your confirmed friends on that same event page. Anyone who prefers absolute privacy should keep their friend graph narrow and limited to people comfortable with that mutual transparency.
A duel is not created by tapping a "challenge your friend" button, and it does not require the other side's consent. It forms automatically when two conditions — and only two — are met: there is a confirmed friendship between you, and the two of you have taken opposite outcomes in the same market. Once both hold, the system pairs the positions and presents them to you as a head-to-head.
This is exactly why no matching of amounts is required. You might stake $25 while your friend stakes $400, and the duel still stands and still displays, because it does not link the two amounts financially in any way. Each of you entered the pool at your own size, and each of you will be settled by the pool formula on your own size. A duel does not "lock" part of your balance against your friend, and it creates no bilateral obligation.
By the same logic, you can be in several duels on a single event. If four of your friends pick the outcome opposite to yours, you will be paired with all four — and that does not increase your financial exposure by a single dollar. Your exposure is defined by the one amount you staked in the market, no matter how many head-to-heads appear on screen.
And remember a fundamental design constraint: you cannot exit your position while the event is running. The only exception is cancelling a position in a football market before kick-off, in which case your stake is returned in full. After the start, the position stands until settlement, whether or not your friend is ahead of you in the duel. Which means the decision to enter is the only decision you genuinely control — so make it carefully.
This is the section that settles the whole misunderstanding. Your payout on PolySouq is computed by a single equation that knows neither your friend's name nor that a duel exists at all:
Payout = your stake × (1 + losing pool ÷ winning pool × 0.9)
The 0.9 is what remains after the 10% commission, and that commission is taken from the losing pool only. In other words the platform earns solely from realised profit and takes nothing out of your original stake: your stake is returned to you in full on top of your share of the profit if you were on the correct outcome. And there is no "house" taking the opposite side of your position.
Notice what the numbers are saying: the more crowded the side you picked, the smaller your return; the less crowded it is — and the more correct your estimate turns out to be — the larger it gets. The identity of whoever stands on the other side, friend or stranger, makes no difference at all. Strip every friendship out of the calculation and the payout remains exactly the same number.
You can verify that the system balances with a single table. Take the second market above:
The total matches what was staked, exactly — and that is the solvency condition asserted for every market: the sum of payouts plus commission equals the total staked. No shortfall covered from somewhere else, no surplus conjured out of nothing. The mechanics of resolution are documented in how PolySouq settles markets transparently.
Once a duel is paired it carries one of three statuses at any moment, moving from the first to one of the other two when the market settles. When it resolves you receive a duel-outcome notification alongside the financial settlement of your position — two separate events: the notification is social news, the settlement is what changes your balance.
The common confusion here is that many people read "Won" as a victory over the friend that carries a reward with it. It does not. "Won" simply means you were on the right side and your friend was not, and what you collect is whatever the pool equation says — no more, no less. Had a hundred other people been on the same outcome as you, you would have collected precisely the same amount.
The reverse is equally true: "Lost" in a duel does not mean you paid something to your friend. Your stake moved into the losing pool, and from there it is split among all the people on the correct outcome in proportion to their stakes — it does not go to your friend alone. Their slice of it may be a very small fraction if the winning pool is large.
Awaiting result is the longest status and the most psychologically charged, because it is the stretch where you watch the event unfold while unable to act. Accepting that powerlessness is part of the discipline of event trading: the entire decision is made before you enter, and the waiting afterwards is not a decision space.
Not every market ends with a winner and a loser. There are cases where the money goes back to its owners in full, the commission is zero, and there is nothing for the duel to resolve in the first place. Knowing these cases matters because they define the real ceiling on your loss in unusual scenarios.
In the first four cases the head-to-head evaporates: no "Won" and no "Lost," because the market itself never produced a winning side and a losing side. You and your friend simply get your stakes back as they were, as though nothing happened. This follows directly from the solvency rule: the platform keeps nothing when there is no profit to split in the first place.
The last row is the one that matters most in practice, because it is the constraint beginners get wrong. The moment the event starts there is no "close position" option, no selling your position to another participant, and no stop-loss. Anyone who staked while assuming they could back out midway through the second half will find out otherwise, too late. For the complete picture of how money moves — deposits, withdrawals and fees — see deposits, withdrawals and fees.
The fastest way to build a circle of competition is the invite link. Every link you share carries your personal referral code, so anyone who signs up through it is attributed to you. That is the same mechanism the referral programme runs on, and we have given it a full explanation in inviting friends and the referral programme.
The most useful practical feature is that a link can point at a specific event rather than just the home page. That is a big difference in conversion: when you send your group a link that opens directly on the market for the match they are talking about right now, you remove every searching and browsing step between them and the screen you want them to see. A generic link leaves the visitor on the browse page to find their own way, and plenty of them never do.
One ethical point is worth flagging: inviting someone to a real-money platform is not inviting them to a game. When you share the link, make it clear to the person you are inviting that losing the entire staked amount is a live possibility, and that deposits and withdrawals happen in USDC on the Polygon network exclusively. An honest invitation builds a circle that lasts; a misleading one produces an angry friend right after the first settlement.
A duel is a head-to-head on one market; the leaderboard is the cumulative picture of your performance across many. The difference between them is fundamental: you can lose a duel to a friend and still finish ahead of them in the overall ranking that same week, or exactly the reverse. One market measures no skill at all; a long series of markets starts to.
This is where the clearest behavioural risk lives. A leaderboard is a visible ranking, and a duel is a direct confrontation with someone you know; put the two together and you get genuine pressure to chase — opening more positions or sizing up to make up for an apparent gap in the standings. That is precisely the pattern that drains capital, because it makes position size a function of feelings rather than probability estimates. The ranking mechanics are explained in detail in how the leaderboard works.
The weekly ranking has its own logic and deserves a separate read, because it resets the time frame and changes what "good performance" practically means — you will find it in the weekly leaderboard rankings explained. A weekly window rewards consistency inside a short span, which can tempt you into risk-taking near the end of the week; watch for that tendency in yourself.
The healthy way to use this whole layer is to treat it as a record, not a target. Review your finished duels and ask: was my probability estimate reasonable at the moment I entered, regardless of how it turned out? That question improves your decisions. The question "how do I get ahead of so-and-so before Sunday?" corrodes them.
The social function of any competitive platform is to keep users engaged, and that is not in itself a flaw — but it becomes a hazard the moment engagement turns into pressure on position size. The rule we recommend on PolySouq is blunt: do not change your position size because a friend is watching. The amount you would have staked if nobody could see it is the correct amount.
A simple practical test helps before you confirm any position: imagine the duel does not exist and nobody will ever know about this position. Would you stake the same amount? If the answer is no, the difference is not analysis but a social response — and that is the part to delete. The methodical framework for sizing is in risk and capital management.
The biggest benefit of the social network appears when it is used to sharpen thinking rather than escalate risk. Comparing your probability estimate with a friend who disagrees — and asking them to justify their number rather than just declare their stance — is an excellent exercise. If you want a methodical basis for those conversations, start from expected value in prediction markets.
A lot of the questions we get about duels assume features that do not exist, and we would rather correct them plainly than leave them to be discovered late. First and most important: there are no private markets between two users. You cannot create a closed head-to-head with your friend on terms the two of you agree, and you cannot set a mutual amount between you. A duel is read purely from your activity in the public markets.
Second: there is no demo account, no play money, no free coins and no signup bonus. Anyone who wants to explore the mechanics risk-free does so through theoretical reading — such as probability basics for prediction markets — not through a practice mode inside the platform. Any real position requires a real balance.
Third, on the tooling side: there is no leverage, no margin, no stop-loss and no CFDs. There is also no copying of positions and no automatic following of a high-performing friend's predictions; seeing a friend's position in the event panel does not mean you can clone it with one tap, and you should not do so without your own independent estimate.
Fourth, on money: deposits are made by sending USDC on the Polygon network to your personal deposit address, and withdrawals are made in USDC only to an address on the same network that you provide. There is no withdrawal to a bank account, IBAN or card, and no "connect wallet" model via browser extensions. The withdrawal steps are laid out in how to withdraw USDC step by step.
A blunt warning with no sugar-coating: the money used on PolySouq is real, and losing the entire staked amount is a live possibility on every position. The social layer — friends, duels, the leaderboard — does not soften that risk or change it in any way; if anything it can hide it behind the feeling of play. There are no guaranteed profits, no strategy that eliminates the possibility of loss, and nothing in this guide constitutes financial advice directed at your personal situation.
On the regulatory side, we do not decide on your behalf what is permitted where you live and what is not, and we claim no local licence or approval from any supervisory body in any market. What we do state clearly is the limit of what we provide technically: USDC rails on the Polygon network only, and no local banking channel of any kind. Verifying your own legal and tax position in your country of residence — including the treatment of any profits — is your responsibility alone, and consulting a qualified professional in your jurisdiction is the sensible step.
Operationally, remember the constraints you met in this guide: no exit from a position after the event starts (except cancelling a football position before kick-off), a 10% commission taken from the losing pool only, the winner's stake returned in full, and refunds on a void that are complete rather than partial. These rules are fixed and are unaffected by whether a duel exists or not.
Finally, if your concern is checking how serious the platform is and what protections it has before you deposit, start from is PolySouq trustworthy? and the legality and safety question. Reading before depositing is far cheaper than learning afterwards.
A duel is an interface view that pairs your position with your friend's when the two of you take opposite outcomes in the same market. It is not created by tapping a button and needs no consent from the other side — it forms automatically when there is a confirmed friendship and two opposite positions. Both of you remain inside the shared parimutuel pool alongside every other participant, and a duel is not a separate market between you.
No. PolySouq is a prediction-market platform running on a parimutuel pool model: the stakes participants place on each outcome are pooled, and at settlement the people on the correct outcome split the losing pool in proportion to their stakes while getting their original stakes back in full. There is no counterparty taking the other side of your position and no margin built into the price in the platform's favour; the only charge is a 10% commission taken from the losing pool alone, meaning the platform earns only when real profit is created. Even so, the risk is real and losing the whole staked amount is possible.
No. Your friend's stake moves into the losing pool and does not go to you directly. That pool — after the 10% commission — is split among everyone who was on the correct outcome in proportion to each person's stake, not among whoever happened to be paired in a duel. If the winning pool is large your share of your friend's stake may be very small, and if you had not been paired with anyone at all you would have collected exactly the same amount.
Not at all. A duel moves no additional money from your balance and imposes no matching of sizes. You might stake $25 while your friend stakes $400 and the duel still stands and still displays. Your financial exposure is defined by the single amount you staked in that market, even if you are paired with several friends on the same event.
You send a friend request from the user profile using the add button, and the friendship only exists once the other person accepts — the relationship is always mutual. You can also share an invite link carrying your referral code, and that link can point at a specific event rather than the home page. Creating an account is free, but real participation requires a deposit of at least
Yes, within clear limits: the event page shows a panel listing the friends who have taken a position in that specific event and which outcome each of them chose — and the reverse is true, so your positions are visible to your confirmed friends on that same page. This is exactly why a friendship requires mutual acceptance. Anyone who prefers privacy should keep their friends list narrow.
In those cases the money comes back in full and the commission is zero. If every participant picked the correct outcome there is no losing pool and all stakes are refunded in full. If nobody staked on the outcome that occurred, the market is voided and all stakes are returned. Any void or cancellation by the operator means a full refund — there is never any partial refund. Cancelling a position in a football market before kick-off also returns your stake in full. In all of these cases the duel does not resolve, because the market itself never produced a winning side and a losing side.
"Awaiting result" means the duel is paired and the event has not resolved yet, with your stake sitting in the pool and no way to exit. "Won" means your prediction matched the actual result while your friend's did not, so your stake comes back in full plus your share of the losing pool after the 10% commission. "Lost" means your prediction did not match the result, so you lose the entire amount you staked. You receive duel-outcome notifications after settlement.
No. You cannot exit a position once the event has started, and there is no selling of the position, no stop-loss and no partial close. The only exception is cancelling a position in a football market before kick-off, in which case the stake is refunded in full. In practice this means the decision to enter is the only decision you genuinely control, so you should stake only an amount you can afford to lose entirely.
It does not change it in any way. The payout is computed by a single equation: your stake × (1 + losing pool ÷ winning pool × 0.9), an equation that knows nothing about who stands on the other side. The same result would occur whether your opponent is a paired friend, an anonymous participant, or whether there was no duel at all. A duel's value is purely social and motivational.
A duel is a head-to-head on one market, while the leaderboard is a cumulative picture of your performance across many markets — which is why you can lose a duel and climb the ranking in the same week, or the reverse. What matters most is being alert to the behavioural pressure the two create together: chasing the ranking by sizing up is the fastest route to draining your capital. Treat the ranking as a record for reviewing your decisions, not as a target to chase.
There are no private markets or closed head-to-heads between two users on PolySouq. You cannot create a contest on terms you agree between you, cannot set a mutual amount, and cannot reserve a market for your circle alone. A duel is read exclusively from your activity inside the public markets, and you both always remain within the shared pool alongside all participants.
There is no demo account, no play money, no free coins and no signup bonus. Any real position requires a real balance, and the minimum deposit is
Withdrawals are made in USDC only, to an address on the Polygon network that you provide. There is no withdrawal to a bank account, IBAN or card, no local banking channel in any market, and no wallet-connection model via browser extensions — the model is built on a personal deposit address and a withdrawal address you specify. Always confirm the network and the address before executing, and verifying your tax and regulatory position in your country of residence is your responsibility alone.
Disclaimer: Prediction markets are a legal and legitimate way to trade information about the outcomes of future events. However, trading carries risk and you may lose the full amount you trade — so only trade what you can afford to lose. This content is educational and is not financial or investment advice.