PANews reported on April 27th, citing The Block, that researchers from London Business School and Yale University analyzed every trade on Polymarket from 2023 to 2025 and found that only about 3% of accounts were "skilled winners," whose order flows consistently predicted short-term price movements and eventual outcomes. These skilled winners, along with market makers, comprised less than 3.5% of all accounts but captured over 30% of the profits. The study, using a symbolic randomization test, found that raw profits and losses do not accurately measure trading ability: only 12% of high-profit traders overlapped with the skilled group, and approximately 60% of the "lucky winners" turned into losses in another sample. Skill consistency in skilled accounts was as high as 44%, compared to only about 10% for actively managed funds. Approximately 67% of accounts were "unskilled losers," bearing all of the platform's cumulative losses.
Researchers also flagged 1,950 accounts that were briefly opened before an event and then dormant after it was resolved. These accounts had a price impact of 7 to 12 times that of skilled traders per dollar, but their focus on isolated events did not affect overall accuracy. The study covered 1.72 million accounts, 210,300 markets, and approximately $13.76 billion in trading volume.

