Traders moved $645 million through Polymarket in the week of 2026-06-15, across 20.6 million individual trades. Algorithmic wallets accounted for 61% of weekly counterparty events (both maker and taker sides counted); everyone else split the remaining 39%. The most-traded market was "Will Oh Se-hoon win the 2026 Seoul Mayoral Election?", pulling in $3 million of volume.
Cumulative since November 2022:
+$136M to algorithmic wallets
·
-$82M from active retail.
Cumulative P&L by trader type, Polymarket since November 2022
Bots have captured +$136M; active retail traders are down -$82M.
Zero-sum market: bot gains and retail losses balance to within fees and the smaller wallet types.
Associate Professor of Finance · Knauss School of Business, University of San Diego
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Jun 15, 2026POLITICS
Week of 2026-06-15: Will Oh Se-hoon win the 2026 Seoul Mayoral Election
Polymarket traders moved $645 million this week, above the 52-week trend, on 20.6 million individual trades. Traders moved $645 million through Polymarket in the week of 2026-06-15, across 20.6 million individual trades. Algorithmic wallets accounted for 61% of weekly counterparty events (both maker and taker sides counted); everyone else split the remaining 39%. The most-traded market was "Will...
Week of 2026-05-22: Russia x Ukraine ceasefire by June 30, 2026?
Polymarket traders moved $463 million this week across 12.0 million individual trades. Traders moved $463 million through Polymarket in the week of 2026-05-22, across 12.0 million individual trades. Algorithmic wallets accounted for 66% of weekly counterparty events (both maker and taker sides counted); everyone else split the remaining 34%. The most-traded market was "Russia x Ukraine ceasefire...
Week of 2026-05-11: Will the U.S. invade Iran before 2027?
Polymarket traders moved $546 million this week across 23.8 million individual trades. Traders moved $546 million through Polymarket in the week of 2026-05-11, across 23.8 million individual trades. Algorithmic wallets accounted for 73% of weekly counterparty events (both maker and taker sides counted); everyone else split the remaining 27%. The most-traded market was "Will the U.S. invade Iran...
Flagged wallets: mostly retail by count, almost entirely bots by dollars.
Of 6,291 wallets flagged at p<0.01 by the orthogonality test, 62% are active retail, 21% are sophisticated, only 16% are algorithmic. But profitability tells the opposite story: 4,306 (68.4%) of the flagged set were profitable, generating $152.5M in aggregate. The 1,026 flagged bots captured $137.6M of that — 90% of all flagged-wallet gains flow to the algorithmic 16%, with mean PnL of $134K per bot vs $2.2K per retail wallet. The screen catches private information across every wallet class; the dollars accrue almost entirely to the algos who can act on it at scale.
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Joshua Della Vedova · Knauss School of Business, University of San Diego
Updated weekly · 2026-W25
