Polymarket’s Alpha traders: the secret chat turning wars and elections into profit (opens the source in a new tab)
- About 30 members, mostly Gen Z, pool research in an invitation-only Discord; they’ve made an estimated $40mn on Polymarket since 2024.
- A CEPR study found two-thirds of Polymarket users lost money; 0.1% of profitable traders captured half the profits.
- Polymarket and Kalshi averaged about $1.6bn a day in August, up nearly 2,000% in a year.
- $40mn
- Alpha’s est. profit since 2024
- 2/3
- of users lost money
- $1.6bn
- daily volume, August
Why it matters A few sharps win; most bettors are the liquidity they feed on.
Other side Members call it skill, not luck. One, a PhD student now attending gambling-addiction meetings, says the real harm is the story that this is democratised finance.