Polymarket top traders: who really makes money? We analysed the leaderboard and 10,000 random wallets
Most Polymarket traders lose: 74% of 10,050 randomly sampled active wallets are down all time. We analysed the top 10,050 traders, the leaderboards for every category and the profiles of 1,645 top wallets: who wins, how concentrated profits are, big bets versus grinders, and what it means for you.
In this article
- Key findings
- What other studies found
- The data
- Finding 1: most traders lose
- Finding 2: profits are extremely concentrated
- Finding 3: two ways to the top
- Finding 4: volume is not skill
- Finding 5: one market can make a career
- Finding 6: winners specialise
- Finding 7: the leaderboard churns
- Finding 8: most top traders are new
- Finding 9: wallets are not people
- What this means if you trade
- Limitations
- Download the data
- Polymarket top traders: frequently asked questions
- Keep reading
Most people who trade on Polymarket lose money, and a small group takes most of the profit. In a random sample of 10,050 active Polymarket wallets, 74% were down all time and only 26% were up; the median wallet had lost $114. At the top, the 1,000 most profitable traders made 67% of everything the 10,050 traders on the all-time leaderboard made.
We pulled Polymarket's public leaderboards (all time, this month, this week, today and ten categories), looked up the all-time results of 10,050 wallets drawn at random from 600 random markets, and examined the trading history of 1,645 of the biggest winners and most active traders. This is what the data says about who makes money, how, and whether you can copy them.
Key findings
- About three in four traders lose. 74% of the active wallets in our random sample were down all time. Polymarket's own rankings put between about 890,000 and 900,000 wallets in profit, out of more than 3,200,000 with a recorded result.
- Profits are extremely concentrated. The top 10 traders on the all-time leaderboard made 10% of the profit of the top 10,050, the top 100 made 33% and the top 1,000 made 67%.
- The bar is high. It took $1.7 million of all-time profit to be in the top 100, $211,151 for the top 1,000 and $15,793 for the top 10,000.
- Volume is not skill. Of the 10,050 traders with the most volume, 47% had lost money. Together they traded $148.3 billion and kept 0.16% of it as profit.
- There are two ways to the top. Some top traders made 30 to 70 cents per dollar traded on a few huge, directional bets. Others made about 1 cent per dollar on billions of dollars of trading. Both kinds sit in the top 10.
- One market can make a career. For the median top-1,000 trader, a single market produced 31% of all-time profit; for 34% of them, one market produced half or more.
- Winners specialise. 84% of the traders who appear in the top 1,000 of any category appear in only one. Sports has the most money: its top 1,000 have made $573.5 million, against $303.4 million in politics.
- The leaderboard churns. Only 22% of the all-time top 100 made money this month; 16% lost money and the rest had no result this month.
- Most top traders are new. 72% of the all-time top 1,000 closed their first position in 2025 or 2026.
- Wallets are not people. Four of the top 50 wallets, worth $47.9 million together, are widely reported to belong to one French trader who bet on Donald Trump in 2024.
What other studies found
Our numbers line up with the best independent work on Polymarket traders:
| Study | Sample | Finding |
|---|---|---|
| Gómez-Cram, Guo, Kung (London Business School) and Jensen (Yale), working paper, April 2026 | 1.72 million accounts, 2023–2025, $13.76 billion volume | About 3% of accounts are skilled; skilled traders and market makers are under 3.5% of accounts but capture over 30% of gains; 67% of accounts are losers who absorb the platform's losses |
| On-chain analysis by defioasis, December 2025 | About 1.7 million addresses, realised profit only | About 70% of addresses had net realised losses; about 5% made more than $1,000 |
| Anti-Corruption Data Collective, August 2026 | 2026 congressional markets on Polymarket | The top 1% of wallets account for 68% of trading volume |
| defioasis on the 2026 World Cup winner market, July 2026 | 194,000+ wallets in one market | 66.7% of wallets ended in the red |
The academic paper's most important finding is about luck: only 12% of the top earners were also in its "skilled" group, and about 60% of "lucky winners" turned into losers on a separate set of events. The leaderboard shows who made money, not who will.
The data
We used Polymarket's public data API on 26 October 2026:
- Leaderboards. The all-time and this-month leaderboards by profit and by volume (top 10,050 each, the deepest the API goes), this week and today (top 1,000) and the all-time profit and volume leaderboards for ten categories (top 1,000 each).
- A random sample of traders. We picked 600 closed markets at random, collected the 53,743 wallets that traded in their latest 500 trades, drew 10,050 of them at random and looked up each wallet's all-time profit, volume and rank. Unlike the public leaderboard pages, the lookup also returns losing wallets.
- Profiles of the top traders. For the top 1,000 traders by all-time profit and the top 1,000 by volume (1,645 wallets), we counted the markets each has traded and pulled its 50 best and 50 worst closed positions, its first closed position and its result this month.
Profit here is Polymarket's own figure: realised gains and losses plus the current value of open positions, in US dollars. Polymarket's leaderboard covers its global, crypto-based exchange; accounts on Polymarket US, the regulated US exchange, are not public.
Finding 1: most traders lose
Source: Polymarket data API; PredictDesks analysis
Show the dataHide the data
| Value | |
|---|---|
| Lost $10,000+ | 5.1% |
| Lost $1,000–$10,000 | 17.4% |
| Lost $100–$1,000 | 29.4% |
| Lost under $100 | 22.3% |
| Won under $100 | 9.8% |
| Won $100–$1,000 | 6.7% |
| Won $1,000–$10,000 | 5.1% |
| Won $10,000+ | 4.1% |
74% of the wallets in our sample had lost money all time and 26% had made money. Most losses are small: 52% of wallets were down less than $1,000. But the winners' side is lopsided too: 4.1% of wallets had made $10,000 or more, against 5.1% that had lost that much.
Our sample comes from people who traded in random markets, so it leans towards active traders (the median sampled wallet had traded $38,016). The global ranks tell a similar story from a different angle. Polymarket ranks every wallet with a result. The lowest-ranked profitable wallet in our sample sat at about #891,455, the highest-ranked losing wallet at #896,201 (the wallets in between broke even), and the lowest-ranked wallet of all at about #3,228,943. That puts roughly 28% of all ranked wallets in profit, in line with the 30% that earlier on-chain analyses found.
| Volume traded, all time | Wallets in sample | In profit | Median result |
|---|---|---|---|
| $100–$1,000 | 435 | 29% | -$9 |
| $1,000–$10,000 | 2,242 | 21% | -$35 |
| $10,000–$100,000 | 3,847 | 21% | -$208 |
| $100,000+ | 3,470 | 34% | -$1,126 |
Heavier traders were somewhat more likely to be ahead (34% of wallets with $100,000 or more of volume), but a minority of every activity band was in profit, and the heaviest traders lost the most in absolute terms: the median wallet with $100,000+ of volume was down $1,126.
Finding 2: profits are extremely concentrated
Source: Polymarket all-time profit leaderboard, 26 October 2026
Show the dataHide the data
| Value | |
|---|---|
| Top 10 | 9.8% |
| #11–100 | 22.9% |
| #101–1,000 | 34.8% |
| #1,001–10,050 | 32.6% |
The 10,050 traders on the all-time profit leaderboard have made $1.3 billion between them. A tenth of that went to ten wallets, a third to the top 100 and two-thirds to the top 1,000.
| Rank | All-time profit |
|---|---|
| #1 | $22.1 million |
| #10 | $8.7 million |
| #100 | $1.7 million |
| #1,000 | $211,151 |
| #5,000 | $34,950 |
| #10,000 | $15,793 |
The 25 most profitable wallets:
| Rank | Trader | All-time profit | Volume | Profit per $100 traded |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Theo4 | $22.1 million | $43.0 million | $51.27 |
| 2 | swisstony | $18.5 million | $1.9 billion | $1.00 |
| 3 | Fredi9999 | $16.6 million | $76.6 million | $21.69 |
| 4 | RN1 | $13.3 million | $1.4 billion | $0.93 |
| 5 | kch123 | $11.4 million | $293.4 million | $3.87 |
| 6 | BreakTheBank | $10.5 million | $341.4 million | $3.06 |
| 7 | mintblade | $9.1 million | $17.8 million | $51.30 |
| 8 | fishalive | $9.0 million | $13.3 million | $67.75 |
| 9 | frostrizz | $8.8 million | $23.1 million | $38.12 |
| 10 | Len9311238 | $8.7 million | $16.4 million | $53.10 |
| 11 | sparklingwater123 | $8.4 million | $19.0 million | $43.94 |
| 12 | zxgngl | $7.8 million | $40.6 million | $19.25 |
| 13 | RepTrump | $7.5 million | $14.0 million | $53.87 |
| 14 | GRIMDRIP | $7.5 million | $13.6 million | $55.22 |
| 15 | DEEDDIT | $7.5 million | $72.1 million | $10.36 |
| 16 | endlessFate | $7.2 million | $26.3 million | $27.58 |
| 17 | PrincessCaro | $6.1 million | $23.5 million | $25.86 |
| 18 | walletmobile | $5.9 million | $32.2 million | $18.46 |
| 19 | beachboy4 | $5.8 million | $239.1 million | $2.44 |
| 20 | KeyTransporter | $5.7 million | $20.1 million | $28.43 |
| 21 | BetTom42 | $5.6 million | $11.2 million | $50.32 |
| 22 | joseph00677 | $5.3 million | $47.1 million | $11.30 |
| 23 | mikatrade77 | $5.1 million | $10.9 million | $47.30 |
| 24 | gmanas | $4.9 million | $529.0 million | $0.93 |
| 25 | alexmulti | $4.8 million | $9.9 million | $48.29 |
Finding 3: two ways to the top
Divide a trader's profit by their volume and two very different businesses appear.
- Big bets. Wallets like Theo4 made around 50 cents on every dollar they traded: a few large, directional positions that paid off. Among the top 100, 23 wallets made 30 cents or more per dollar.
- Grinders. Wallets like swisstony made about 1 cent per dollar on more than a billion dollars of trading: thousands of positions, mostly sports, where a small edge or market-making spread is repeated at scale. 23 of the top 100 made under 2 cents per dollar.
Source: Polymarket all-time profit leaderboard; PredictDesks analysis
Show the dataHide the data
| Value | |
|---|---|
| Under 2% | 399 |
| 2–10% | 357 |
| 10–30% | 159 |
| 30% or more | 80 |
Both work, and both are hard to copy. A big bet is a single view that was right once; a grinder's edge lives in speed, fees and inventory management that a follower cannot see. Our guide to the Polymarket leaderboard explains how to read a profile, and our guide to copy trading covers the costs and traps of following a wallet.
Finding 4: volume is not skill
The volume leaderboard looks like a list of the best traders. It isn't. Of the 10,050 wallets with the most volume, 4,759 (47%) were down all time, including 24 of the top 100. The median wallet kept 0.01% of what it traded.
| Rank by volume | Trader | Volume | All-time profit |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | swisstony | $1.9 billion | $18.5 million |
| 2 | RN1 | $1.4 billion | $13.3 million |
| 3 | ferrariChampions2026 | $1.4 billion | $2.0 million |
| 4 | 0x2c335066… | $1.3 billion | $4.6 million |
| 5 | suntori | $764.3 million | -$11.7 million |
| 6 | tripping | $732.7 million | $55,771 |
| 7 | risk-manager | $698.7 million | $196,273 |
| 8 | cigarettes | $603.0 million | -$45,531 |
| 9 | gmanas | $529.0 million | $4.9 million |
| 10 | VeryLucky888 | $527.8 million | $400,809 |
The very largest accounts trade in tens or hundreds of thousands of markets, which is what market makers and automated sports traders do. They live on the spread and, on Polymarket, on maker rebates and liquidity rewards, earned on enormous turnover. That is a business, not a forecast you can follow.
Finding 5: one market can make a career
For each of the top 1,000 traders we compared their best single market with their all-time profit.
- The median top-1,000 trader made 31% of their profit in one market.
- 34% made half or more of their profit in one market.
- 10% made more in their best market than they have overall, meaning the rest of their trading lost money.
The top earners are not hyperactive. The median top-1,000 trader has traded in 465 markets, against 2,368 for the top 1,000 by volume, and 12% of them have traded in fewer than ten.
The biggest single-market wins among the wallets we profiled:
| Market | Position | Trader | Profit | Market end date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Will Donald Trump win the 2024 US Presidential Election? | Yes | zxgngl | $11.4 million | 2024-11-05 |
| Will Donald Trump win the 2024 US Presidential Election? | Yes | JustPracticeMan | $11.4 million | 2024-11-05 |
| Will Donald Trump win the 2024 US Presidential Election? | Yes | Fredi9999 | $9.7 million | 2024-11-05 |
| Will Donald Trump win the popular vote in the 2024 Presidential Election? | Yes | Theo4 | $8.3 million | 2024-11-05 |
| Will IR Iran win on 2026-06-15? | No | mintblade | $7.2 million | 2026-06-16 |
| Will Kamala Harris win the 2024 US Presidential Election? | Yes | undertaker | $6.3 million | 2024-11-04 |
| France vs. Spain: Team to Advance | Spain | DEEDDIT | $6.0 million | 2026-07-14 |
| Will Donald Trump win the 2024 US Presidential Election? | Yes | walletmobile | $5.9 million | 2024-11-05 |
| Will Türkiye win on 2026-06-19? | No | frostrizz | $5.9 million | 2026-06-20 |
| Will Donald Trump win the 2024 US Presidential Election? | Yes | qrpenc | $5.0 million | 2024-11-05 |
| Will Czechia win on 2026-06-18? | No | GRIMDRIP | $4.9 million | 2026-06-18 |
| Spread: Spain (-2.5) | Cabo Verde | fishalive | $4.7 million | 2026-06-15 |
And the biggest single-market losses:
| Market | Position | Trader | Loss | Market end date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Will Belgium win on 2026-07-01? | Yes | DEEDDIT | -$7.7 million | 2026-07-01 |
| Will Morocco win on 2026-07-04? | No | coldsway | -$5.0 million | 2026-07-04 |
| Will Paris Saint-Germain FC win on 2026-01-28? | Yes | beachboy4 | -$4.2 million | 2026-01-28 |
| Will Spain win on 2026-06-26? | No | BAREFLUX | -$2.9 million | 2026-06-27 |
| Will United States win on 2026-06-12? | No | Sparkling8899 | -$2.9 million | 2026-06-13 |
| Fed decreases interest rates by 50+ bps after January 2026 meeting? | No | Pestle | -$2.8 million | 2026-01-28 |
| Will Nicușor Dan win the Romanian presidential election? | No | cigarettes | -$2.7 million | 2025-12-31 |
| Will Arsenal FC win on 2026-04-11? | Yes | gfjoigfsjoigsjoi | -$2.6 million | 2026-04-11 |
| Will Zelenskyy wear a suit before July? | No | debased | -$2.1 million | 2025-06-30 |
| Will Joe Biden win the 2024 Democratic Presidential Nomination? | Yes | therealbatman | -$2.1 million | 2024-08-19 |
Two events dominate both lists: the 2024 US presidential election and the 2026 World Cup, the biggest single market in Polymarket's history. Profit and loss here are Polymarket's realised figures for each position, which include gains and losses from selling before resolution.
Finding 6: winners specialise
Source: Polymarket category leaderboards, 26 October 2026
Show the dataHide the data
| Value | |
|---|---|
| Politics | $303.4M |
| Sports | $573.5M |
| Crypto | $121.8M |
| Culture | $31.9M |
| Mentions | $9.5M |
| Weather | $9.5M |
| Economics | $37.1M |
| Tech | $9.8M |
| Finance | $20.8M |
| Esports | $104.8M |
| Category | Top 1,000 profit | #1 trader | #1 profit | #100 profit | #1,000 profit | Top 1,000 by volume who lost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sports | $573.5 million | swisstony | $18.5 million | $1.2 million | $79,787 | 41% |
| Politics | $303.4 million | Theo4 | $22.1 million | $504,266 | $51,459 | 32% |
| Crypto | $121.8 million | 0xf705fa04… | $2.2 million | $242,555 | $37,867 | 28% |
| Esports | $104.8 million | bossoskil1 | $3.7 million | $201,463 | $18,386 | 47% |
| Economics | $37.1 million | TheReturnOfDarthMaul | $1.7 million | $75,498 | $5,567 | 43% |
| Culture | $31.9 million | Annica | $697,075 | $62,967 | $8,329 | 31% |
| Finance | $20.8 million | boyau | $529,683 | $36,187 | $5,314 | 38% |
| Tech | $9.8 million | 0xafEe… | $1.2 million | $17,657 | $1,827 | 49% |
| Mentions | $9.5 million | bama124 | $293,246 | $20,012 | $1,393 | 45% |
| Weather | $9.5 million | gopfan2 | $317,221 | $18,895 | $2,061 | 37% |
Of the 7,849 wallets that appear in the top 1,000 of at least one category, 84% appear in only one, and 122 appear in five or more. Sports and politics hold most of the money; small categories such as mentions, weather and tech have thin leaderboards where a few thousand dollars buys a top-1,000 place. Our accuracy study found the same split from the other side: sports markets are the hardest to forecast and political ones among the easiest.
Finding 7: the leaderboard churns
The all-time list is a record of the past. We looked up how the all-time top traders did this month (October 2026, to the 26th):
Source: Polymarket data API; PredictDesks analysis
Show the dataHide the data
| Value | |
|---|---|
| Made money | 22% |
| Lost money | 16% |
| No result this month | 62% |
Only 22% of the all-time top 100, and 31% of the top 1,000, were in profit this month. Many of the biggest names have simply stopped trading, or trade rarely. Going the other way, 87 of this month's top 100 are on the all-time list, 77 of this week's and 58 of today's: the shorter the window, the more it rewards one lucky move.
| Leaderboard | #1 profit | #1,000 profit | Top 100 also on the all-time list |
|---|---|---|---|
| This month | $8.4 million | $16,028 | 87 |
| This week | $2.3 million | $6,968 | 77 |
| Today | $584,652 | $538 | 58 |
Finding 8: most top traders are new
Source: Polymarket data API; PredictDesks analysis
Show the dataHide the data
| Value | |
|---|---|
| 2020 | 1% |
| 2021 | 1% |
| 2022 | 1% |
| 2023 | 1% |
| 2024 | 24% |
| 2025 | 33% |
| 2026 | 39% |
72% of the all-time top 1,000 closed their first position in 2025 or 2026. Polymarket has grown so fast, especially in sports, that most of today's biggest winners are recent arrivals. Being early is not what got them to the top.
Finding 9: wallets are not people
A leaderboard ranks wallets, and one person can run many. The best-known case is the French trader reported as "Théo", who bet heavily on Donald Trump in 2024. Four accounts reported to be his are all in the all-time top 50:
| Wallet | Rank | All-time profit |
|---|---|---|
| Theo4 | #1 | $22.1 million |
| Fredi9999 | #3 | $16.6 million |
| PrincessCaro | #17 | $6.1 million |
| Michie | #50 | $3.1 million |
Together they hold $47.9 million. Blockchain analysts at Chainalysis later linked as many as nine accounts to the same trader, with an estimated $78.7 million of profit on the 2024 election. Concentration among people is therefore even higher than among wallets.
What this means if you trade
- Expect to lose, and size accordingly. Three in four active wallets are behind. Trade with money you can afford to lose, and size each position so that being wrong does not knock you out (the Kelly criterion and the Kelly calculator help).
- Look for an edge before you trade. The traders at the top either know a topic better than the market or run a business with lower costs. If you cannot say which, the price is probably right (expected value and the EV calculator).
- Do not copy volume. The biggest wallets by volume are market makers. Nearly half of the top-volume list is losing money.
- Treat a hot streak as noise. Most of this month's leaders will not be next month's, and most of the all-time leaders are not winning now. Following whales has a cost: our whale-tracking guide explains how to read big trades without chasing them.
- Specialise. The winners mostly win in one category. Pick the one you know.
Limitations
- Profit includes open positions. Polymarket's profit figure marks open positions at today's price, so it can change before markets resolve.
- The random sample leans towards active traders. Wallets that trade often appear in more markets, so they are more likely to be sampled. Casual users who traded once or twice are under-represented; their results are likely similar or worse.
- The global rank estimate is approximate. It rests on the ranks of the wallets in our sample, not on a full list.
- The leaderboard API stops at 10,050 entries, so concentration figures are shares of the top 10,050, not of all profit.
- Wallets, not people. One trader can run many wallets, and some wallets are businesses or bots.
- Global exchange only. Polymarket US accounts and Kalshi accounts are not public, so they are not covered.
Download the data
Free to use with credit to PredictDesks (licence: CC BY 4.0).
- All-time profit leaderboard, top 10,050 (CSV): rank, trader name, wallet, all-time profit and volume, as of 26 October 2026.
- Random sample of traders (CSV): the all-time profit and volume of each sampled wallet (wallet addresses removed).
To cite: PredictDesks Research, "Polymarket top traders: who really makes money?", October 2026.
Polymarket top traders: frequently asked questions
Who is the most profitable Polymarket trader?
On 26 October 2026 the all-time profit leaderboard was led by Theo4 with $22.1 million, followed by swisstony ($18.5 million) and Fredi9999 ($16.6 million). Theo4 and Fredi9999 are among the accounts reported to belong to one French trader.
How much do the top Polymarket traders make?
The top 100 have each made at least $1.7 million all time and the top 1,000 at least $211,151. It takes $15,793 to make the top 10,000.
Can you make money on Polymarket?
Some people do, but most don't: 74% of the active wallets in our sample were behind all time. Those who win tend to specialise in one category and either have better information than the market or run a low-cost, high-volume business.
What percentage of Polymarket traders make money?
About a quarter of active wallets in our sample, and roughly 28% of all wallets Polymarket ranks. Earlier on-chain analyses put it at about 30%.
Does high volume on the leaderboard mean a good trader?
No. 47% of the 10,050 highest-volume wallets have lost money. Volume mostly measures market makers and high-frequency traders.
How do I see the Polymarket leaderboard?
It is on Polymarket's site under the leaderboard (rankings) page, filterable by profit or volume, time period and category. Our guide shows how to read it: the Polymarket leaderboard explained.
Is there a Kalshi leaderboard?
Kalshi has a leaderboard and social profiles for traders who choose to share their results, but its accounts are not public wallets, so there is no full, platform-wide record to study. This analysis covers Polymarket's global exchange only.
Keep reading
- The Polymarket leaderboard: how to read it
- Polymarket whale tracker: following the big money
- Polymarket copy trading: does it work?
- How accurate are prediction markets? Our study of 358,236 markets
- How to make money on prediction markets
- The Kelly criterion for prediction markets
- Insider trading on Kalshi and Polymarket
