Galaxy Research finds 69% of Polymarket retail accounts lose money

Most people betting on the future on Polymarket are not getting paid for their foresight. A new Galaxy Research study of 2.9 million retail accounts found that 69.2% finished below break-even. Combined, those accounts lost $338.9 million. What Galaxy Research found The report, published October 1, 2026, draws on on-chain data covering Polymarket’s full trading history. That history stretches back to the platform’s 2020 launch. Galaxy defined retail accounts as those trading at a human pace. That filter separates people clicking buttons from machines that place orders faster than anyone can blink. The typical loss was small. The median retail account lost approximately $3. The middle 50% of accounts landed somewhere between a loss of $36.64 and a gain of $0.40. The tails tell a sharper story. The top 1% of losers dropped as much as $4,804, while the top 1% of gainers made $3,381. Losing makes people leave Galaxy also tracked what traders did after a result came in. Following a loss, 15.2% of traders stopped trading entirely. After a win, only 6.1% walked away. That makes post-loss churn 2.5 times higher than post-win churn. Specialists, sports fans and position size Some 44.1% conce...