The first question every newcomer to prediction markets asks is: "how much do I get if I am right?" On PolySouq the answer is not a number locked at the moment you buy. It is the result of a simple formula applied at settlement to the money actually sitting in the two pools: the YES pool and the NO pool. If you are right you always get your own stake back, plus your share of the other side's money after a 10% commission taken from the losing pool only. This guide walks through the formula step by step, solves three examples with real numbers, explains why the quoted payout moves before settlement, and covers what happens when there are no losers or no winners. This is real-money trading: you can lose everything you put into any market, and nothing guarantees a profit.
On PolySouq you are not buying a "share" from a platform standing on the other side. You put an amount of USDC into the pool of the outcome you expect, and other traders put theirs into the opposite pool. When the result is known, everyone who was right splits the losing pool in proportion to their stakes, and each of them also gets their own stake back in full. The platform does not take the other side of your trade and carries no position of its own. All it earns is a 10% commission calculated on the losing pool only.
That last point is the most important detail of the fee model. The commission is not deducted from your stake when you enter, and it is not deducted from your original stake when you win. It is taken from the money the other side lost, before that money is shared out. That is why it works out to exactly 10% of the winners' total profit: the winners' profit is the losing pool. There is no entry fee on a trade.
Call the total staked on the winning outcome W (the winning pool), the total staked on the losing outcome L (the losing pool), and the commission rate 0.10. At settlement the arithmetic runs in three stages:
The last line says: payout = stake × payout multiple, where the multiple is 1 plus the ratio of the losing pool to the winning pool, times 0.90. The bigger the opposite pool relative to yours, the higher the multiple. The more crowded your pool, the lower the multiple, because the same prize is divided among more winners.
There is one accounting rule that is never broken: everything paid to winners plus the commission equals exactly the total staked in the two pools. The platform checks this equality at every settlement, and if the numbers do not balance the settlement stops and nothing is paid until the fault is fixed, rather than paying out an unbalanced amount. Each payout is rounded down to a whole cent, and the leftover fractions of a cent are added to the commission so the equation stays balanced.
Take a market asking "Will the team win the match?" At settlement the YES pool holds 600 USDC and the NO pool holds 400 USDC. YES wins. The workings:
If the outcome had gone the other way with the same pools, NO would win: winning pool 400, losing pool 600, commission 60, shared amount 400 + 540 = 940, and the multiple is 940 ÷ 400 = 2.35. Someone who staked 10 USDC on NO would receive 23.5 USDC. The multiple is higher because NO was the side with less money, so fewer winners split a bigger prize. But it was also the side the crowd considered less likely, which is exactly what a lower share of the money means.
This is the point that surprises people arriving from other platforms. When you type a stake on the buy screen, PolySouq shows an estimated payout: what your return would be "if the pools froze at this moment and your outcome won". The actual payout is fixed at settlement, according to the money that has entered the pools by the time the market closes. Money that arrives on your side after your trade dilutes your share; money that arrives on the other side increases it.
Example: you stake 100 USDC on YES when YES holds 200 and NO holds 300. The estimate counts your stake inside your own pool (so YES becomes 300): 300 × 0.90 × (100 ÷ 300) = 90 profit, a payout of 190 USDC at a multiple of 1.90. Then one of two things happens before the close:
You were right in all three cases, yet the payout ranged from 138.57 to 250. So treat the figure shown before settlement as an estimate, not a promise, which is how we label it everywhere it appears. It also means size matters: the larger your stake relative to the pool, the more you move your own payout, and the estimate already accounts for that by adding your intended stake to the pool before dividing.
Three situations involve no winning or losing at all, and in each one the money is returned in full with zero commission:
The second rule is deliberate: if the platform kept the pool when nobody was on the right side, its biggest paydays would be the markets where every user lost, which contradicts the idea that the platform earns only from winners' profits. So the money goes back. See also our guide on when a market is voided and your money returned for the full detail.
The percentage shown for each side is its share of the money actually staked in the market. If YES holds 600 and NO holds 400, the display reads 60% and 40%. It is a reading of participants' positions measured in money, not a verdict from an expert or a model. That is one reason prediction markets work as an information tool: someone who disagrees with the crowd has to put real money behind the disagreement. A market that no money has entered yet has no genuine crowd probability yet.
The link between percentage and payout is direct: the side holding 60% of the money gives its winners a lower multiple (about 1.6 in our example) than the side holding 40% (about 2.35). It all follows from one principle: not everyone can profit from everyone, and the higher multiple is the price of standing with the less popular view when it turns out to be right.
In a shared pool there is nobody buying your position at a market price, because the counterparty is not a seller but the sum of participants in the other pool. So the amount you place is final until settlement: you hold the position until the result is known. This is not a technical limitation but a direct consequence of how the model works, and we explain the difference in our guide to buy and sell orders. The practical takeaway: before you place any amount, ask yourself whether you are comfortable with it staying in the market until settlement whatever the news does.
To move from understanding the formula to judging whether a trade is worth taking, read expected value, step by step.
Trading on PolySouq uses real money in USDC on the Polygon network, with a minimum deposit of 10 dollars. You can lose the entire amount you place in any market, nothing guarantees a profit, and there is no demo account or free balance. The payout shown before settlement is an estimate that changes. PolySouq claims no licence or approval from any regulatory body, so check your own country's rules on this activity before you begin, and only put in what you can afford to lose. This content is educational and is not investment advice.
One commission only: 10% calculated on the losing pool alone when a market settles. There is no entry fee on a trade, and the commission is not taken from your original stake if you win, because your stake comes back to you in full. That is why the commission equals 10% of the winners' total profit.
Payout = stake × (1 + losing pool ÷ winning pool × 0.90). Example: winning pool 600 and losing pool 400. The multiple is 1 + 400 ÷ 600 × 0.90 = 1.60, so someone who staked 10 USDC receives 16 USDC.
Because the figure before settlement is an estimate that assumes the pools stop where they are at the moment you buy. Money that arrives on your side after you dilutes your share, and money that arrives on the other side increases it. The actual payout is fixed only at settlement, so you can be right and still receive less than you saw.
Everyone's money is returned in full and the commission is zero. There is no profit to take a commission from, so nobody wins or loses.
The market is voided and all stakes are refunded with no commission. The platform does not keep a pool that has no winners.
No. In a shared pool nobody buys your position, so the amount you place stays in the market until settlement. Decide your stake on that basis.
No. This is real-money trading and you can lose everything you put into any market. We promise no returns, and every figure in this guide is an arithmetic example, not a forecast.
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.