Polymarket Market Dynamics by Category
Different market categories move in fundamentally different ways. This page aggregates statistics from thousands of resolved Polymarket markets: lead changes, probability swings, reversal timing, calibration, and where large capital enters.
Most lead changes
A team at 85% with 8 minutes left can still lose. The market knows it. NBA markets have the widest min-to-max ranges of any category.
Latest reversals
No category flips later. Markets stable for 55+ minutes can reverse in the final 90 seconds on an empty-net goal.
3-5x sports volatility
Round-the-clock, with no schedule or halftime. A single tweet or Fed statement can move a binary market 15+ points in an hour.
Lowest reversal rate
Once consensus forms it sticks. Political markets have the lowest lead-change count of any category. The edge is in being early.
Why This Matters for Trading
Knowing the historical distribution of outcomes tells you what “normal” looks like, and where prices systematically deviate from it.
Halftime Arbitrage
NBAIf a favoured team trails by 8+ at the half, their price often undershoots. Historical data shows heavy mean reversion in the third quarter; buying the oversold favourite is one of the most consistent NBA edges.
Late Entry
NHLBuying the underdog at 8-10% with 2 minutes left in a one-goal game is historically positive EV. Polymarket underweights the empty-net-and-tie scenario more than any other sport.
Volatility Selling
CryptoSharp moves that push a binary to 80%+ are frequently followed by partial reversion within 24 hours. Selling the initial spike has historically been positive expected value in BTC and ETH markets.
Early Entry
PoliticsThe most valuable political positions are taken before consensus forms. Late-stage political markets (within 2 weeks of resolution) offer almost no price discovery; the edge decays quickly.
Browse by Category
Click any category to see the full distribution, calibration curve, and whale entry data.
Other
481 markets
Miscellaneous markets
Crypto
332 markets
24/7 volatility · event-driven · 3-5x sports volatility
Esports
42 markets
Tournament brackets · patch meta shifts · roster changes
NBA
22 markets
Highest lead changes · biggest probability swings
MLB
18 markets
Long exposure windows · early-inning overreaction common
Politics
10 markets
Sticky consensus · lowest lead changes · one-sided
Soccer
10 markets
Low scoring · single-event reversals · draw volatility
Tennis
9 markets
Set-by-set momentum shifts · break-of-serve swings
NFL
7 markets
High-variance single events · early blowouts or nail-biters
AI
7 markets
Model releases · capability benchmarks · policy decisions
Geopolitics
5 markets
International events · conflicts · diplomatic shifts
Pop Culture
4 markets
Sentiment-driven · unpredictable · narrative momentum
Tech
2 markets
Product launches · earnings · regulatory outcomes
NHL
2 markets
Most late reversals · contested until the final minutes
Finance
0 markets
Interest rates · economic data · earnings surprises
Category Comparison
Head-to-head across all three dimensions.
Avg Lead Changes
Higher = more contested outcomes
Hourly Volatility
Avg absolute hourly price change (%)
Late Reversal Timing
Avg % through market when last reversal happened
How the Data Is Collected
Market Indexing
Polyshadow monitors the top 100 active Polymarket markets every two minutes, categorised by sport, crypto, or topic using Polymarket's own tag data. Active markets have prices sampled once per hour.
Stats Computation
When a market closes, the full hourly price history is fetched from the Polymarket CLOB API. We compute lead changes (crossings of 50%), the winner's lowest probability, the loser's peak, and reversal timing.
Volatility Score
Mean absolute change in the primary outcome's probability from one hourly sample to the next. A score of 0.05 means prices moved 5 percentage points per hour on average; crypto markets typically run 3-5x higher.
Get signals when patterns repeat in real time
The dynamics described here play out market-by-market, trade-by-trade. Polyshadow signals fire when smart money moves match the patterns: late-money whale bets, new accounts making large first positions, and convergence across unconnected wallets.
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