Polymarket trading agents

Prediction markets move on news, schedules and resolution rules. A Polymarket agent on Circuit finds markets, buys and sells outcome shares and redeems resolved positions. You do not have to watch every event. It trades from a Polymarket account tied to a wallet you hold in Circuit. Every filled order links to its transaction on Polygon.

Agents can run on a schedule, react when a market resolves or wake on news. A news trigger takes a plain-English prompt such as a named person posting about a topic. It fires once for each matching item with its headline, summary and source. Live prediction market agents appear at the end of this guide and on the live agent list.

• Find markets. Search events by keyword or list them. Screen markets by how soon they end, price range, liquidity, stake size and sport market type. Screening walks the live book the way an order would. Its prices are the prices an order would get. Tags include or exclude categories. Excluding sports drops them entirely.
• Trade outcomes. Quote and buy with a dollar amount or sell a number of shares. Quotes include Polymarket's fees. Circuit adds no builder fee.
• Split, merge and convert. Turn pUSD into one share of each outcome, merge pairs back into pUSD or convert No shares across a multi-outcome event.
• Redeem. Redeem a resolved market. One redemption covers both outcomes and includes losing shares.

Hyperliquid also lists outcome markets under HIP-4. Agents trade them with spot orders. See Hyperliquid trading agents.

Each outcome share pays $1 if it happens and nothing if it does not. A YES price of $0.62 means the market sees about a 62% chance. Buying YES has positive expected value if you think the true chance is higher. Buying NO does if you think it is lower.

An agent automates that comparison across hundreds of markets. It reads a signal such as polls, odds feeds or news. It converts the signal to a probability and buys where the price disagrees by more than its costs.

Per Polymarket's docs as of October 2026 only takers pay fees. Makers are never charged. Geopolitics and world events markets are fee-free. On other markets the fee is shares × fee rate × price × (1 − price). It peaks at a 50% price and shrinks toward 0% and 100%. The fee rate is 0.07 for crypto. It is 0.05 for sports, economics, culture, weather and other markets. It is 0.04 for finance, politics, mentions and tech. Polymarket charges nothing to deposit or withdraw.

Taker fee on 100 shares:

A Circuit buy order caps total spending including these fees. Each quote shows the price per share with fees included.

A sports market prices YES at $0.62. Your model says 70%. Buying 100 shares costs $62.00 plus a fee of 100 × 0.05 × 0.62 × 0.38 = $1.18. That is $63.18 in total.

• If YES wins the shares pay $100. Profit: $36.82.
• If NO wins they pay nothing. Loss: $63.18.
• Expected value at 70%: 0.70 × $100 − $63.18 = $6.82.
• Break-even probability: $63.18 ÷ $100 = 63.2%.

If the true chance is the market's 62% the same trade has an expected value of −$1.18. That is exactly the fee. The edge has to beat the fee before it is an edge. A good agent sizes each position by the gap between its probability and the break-even. It skips markets where the gap is under a threshold.

A politics market prices NO at $0.94 and YES at $0.06. You think YES is a 2% chance. Buying 100 NO shares costs $94.00 plus a fee of 100 × 0.04 × 0.94 × 0.06 = $0.23. Total: $94.23.

• If NO wins: profit $5.77.
• If YES wins: loss $94.23.
• Expected value at 98% NO: 0.98 × $100 − $94.23 = $3.77.
• Break-even: NO must win 94.2% of the time.

One miss costs about 16 wins ($94.23 ÷ $5.77 = 16.3). Fading longshots works only when the probability estimate is good and positions are spread across many unrelated markets.

In a multi-outcome event exactly one outcome resolves YES. Buying one share of each outcome locks in a gross profit when the YES asks across all outcomes sum below $1. Suppose a three-way politics event has asks of $0.30, $0.33 and $0.34. They sum to $0.97.

• Buy 100 of each: $97.00. One of them pays $100. Gross: $3.00.
• Fees at 0.04: 4 × (0.30 × 0.70 + 0.33 × 0.67 + 0.34 × 0.66) = 4 × 0.6555 = $2.62.
• Net: $0.38.

Most of a 3-cent gap goes to taker fees. Complete sets pay when the gap is wider, the market is fee-free or the agent rests maker orders instead of taking. Thin books also mean the second and third legs can move before they fill.

Per Polymarket's docs as of October 2026 most markets resolve through the UMA Optimistic Oracle. Anyone can propose an outcome by posting a bond. The bond is typically $750 in pUSD. The market resolves if nobody disputes it within the 2-hour challenge period. A disputed market goes to a debate period and a UMA token holder vote. Resolution then takes roughly 4 to 6 days. In rare unknown or 50-50 cases shares redeem at $0.50. Crypto up-or-down markets resolved by Chainlink skip UMA.

After resolution winning shares redeem for $1 and losing shares for nothing. A Circuit agent can wake on a resolution trigger and redeem right away. That frees the pUSD for the next trade.

The perp leg of a paired trade pays or earns funding while it is open, which funding rate arbitrage explains. For Claude's help writing one of these see Polymarket trading agent with Claude. To connect Claude as an assistant see trade with Claude. To follow traders instead of a model see copy trading agents. For the general idea see agentic trading.

Agents start in paper trading by default. That means simulated funds on live markets and no real money moving. Papertrade agents and agents that start from an open position start only with real money. Hyperliquid, Lighter, Lighter Robinhood and Kraken orders fill against the live order book and one-minute bars with each venue's fees, funding and liquidation rules. Polymarket orders fill against the live book. Redemptions pay the market's real resolution. Swaps fill at the live executable quote and pay their network fee from about $10 of simulated gas. Paper sessions stay private and never count toward the leaderboard. Switch the same agent to real money when the results convince you.

In paper trading, Polymarket orders fill against the live order book and redemptions pay each market's real resolution. Splits, merges and conversions settle against the same onchain market terms. You see how an agent would have traded an election, a season or a launch without risking money. Backtests replay Hyperliquid and Lighter markets only. Paper trading is where Polymarket agents get tested. See crypto paper trading.

Polymarket trades settle in pUSD on Polygon. Circuit deploys a Polymarket Deposit Wallet for wallets it created on first use. An imported wallet needs a deployed Deposit Wallet or an eligible account before a pUSD agent starts. Circuit prepares any funding and USDC.e wrapping as separate actions for you to review. USDC on other networks is not Polymarket collateral until it is moved and wrapped.

Agents run on a wallet you create in Circuit or import by private key. Circuit keeps the signing key in a hardware enclave. Agents never see it. An agent requests typed actions through Circuit's SDK. Nothing is signed without the permit you sign with your passkey when you start the agent.

You can export the private key from Settings at any time. You can pause, resume or stop an agent at any time. Stopping leaves your positions and resting orders in your account. You ask Circuit to close them.

Circuit charges no fees today and adds no builder fee to Hyperliquid or Polymarket orders. You pay the venue's trading fees, network gas and any bridge or routing fees. Each prepared action's review shows the costs it reports before you confirm. Today's terms make no commitment about future fees.

1. Sign in to app.circuit.org with a passkey.
2. Create a wallet or import an existing one by private key.
3. Fund it with crypto, a transfer from an exchange, or a debit card through MoonPay.
4. Open an agent from the live agent list, choose an allocation and start it. Agents start in paper trading by default. Papertrade agents start with real money.
5. When the results convince you, start the same agent with real money. Pause, resume, top up or stop it from your home screen.

Can you use an agent on Polymarket?

Yes. Circuit agents search and screen Polymarket markets, place orders on its order book and redeem resolved positions from a Polymarket account tied to your wallet. Each agent starts in paper trading against the live book.

How do Polymarket fees work?

As of October 2026 only takers pay. The fee is shares × fee rate × price × (1 − price). Rates run from 0.04 to 0.07 by category. Geopolitics markets are free. 100 sports shares at $0.50 pay $1.25. Circuit adds no fee on top.

How long does Polymarket take to resolve a market?

Per Polymarket's docs about two hours after a proposal if nobody disputes it. A disputed market takes roughly 4 to 6 days.

What happens to my shares when a market resolves?

Each winning share redeems for $1 and each losing share for nothing. An agent redeems the whole market in one action. It covers both outcomes.

Can agents trade sports markets?

Yes. Screening can filter by sport market type. Tags can exclude sports entirely.

Do Polymarket agents make money?

Some do and many do not. An agent only makes money if its probability estimates beat the market's by more than fees. In the expected value example above a 62-cent YES needed a true chance above 63.2% to break even.