The PMM Journal · Updated July 2026

Prediction market trading, explained properly

50 deep-dive guides on Polymarket, Kalshi, and the craft of trading event contracts — mechanics and math, not hype. Written by the team building the Poly Market Maker terminal.

Polymarket

Mechanics, fees, and edges on the CLOB.

18 guides
Polymarket Pillar

8 Polymarket Trading Strategies That Actually Work

8 real Polymarket trading strategies with mechanism and example: liquidity rewards, market-making, arbitrage, order flow, event trading, and fee-aware EV.

Read guide
Polymarket

How Does Polymarket Work? A Trader's Breakdown

How does Polymarket work? Polygon settlement, USDC/pUSD collateral, CLOB matching, and UMA oracle resolution — the actual mechanics, not the pitch.

Read guide
Polymarket

How to Make Money on Polymarket (Realistically)

How to make money on Polymarket, honestly: liquidity rewards, market-making, arbitrage, order-flow — the real edges, no guarantees.

Read guide
Polymarket

Polymarket Market Making: Spread, Rewards & Risk

A practical Polymarket market making guide: quoting both sides, spread capture, liquidity rewards math, inventory risk, and the safety rails to cap it.

Read guide
Polymarket

Polymarket Liquidity Rewards: The Payout Math Explained

How Polymarket liquidity rewards actually pay: per-minute scoring, midpoint closeness, pUSD payouts at 00:00 UTC, and the $5M+/month pool.

Read guide
Polymarket

Polymarket Arbitrage: How To Find and Execute It (2026)

How Polymarket arbitrage actually works: within-market YES+NO gaps, cross-venue spreads vs Kalshi, and why fees kill most of the "free money."

Read guide
Polymarket

Polymarket Trading Bots: What They Are and the Risks

What Polymarket trading bots actually do — API bots, market-making bots — and the safety rails a bot needs before it touches real capital.

Read guide
Polymarket

Polymarket API Trading: A Practical Getting-Started Guide

How Polymarket API trading works: CLOB concept, auth, order types, and rate limits — what to know before you connect a script to your account.

Read guide
Polymarket

Polymarket Order Book Explained: CLOB Mechanics

How the Polymarket order book works: bid/ask, depth, maker vs taker, and off-chain matching with on-chain settlement on Polygon.

Read guide
Polymarket

Polymarket Whale Tracking: How to Read Big Money Flow

Track Polymarket whales: read block trades, spot one-sided order flow, and check on-chain wallets to see what big money is betting on before price moves.

Read guide
Polymarket

Polymarket vs Kalshi: Fees, Regulation, Order Books

Polymarket vs Kalshi compared on regulation, fees, settlement, resolution, and order books, with the 2026 numbers you need before picking a venue.

Read guide
Polymarket

Best Polymarket Tools for Traders in 2026

An honest roundup of the best Polymarket tools in 2026 — free trackers, API libraries, and paid terminals — with what each one actually does.

Read guide
Polymarket

Polymarket Fees Explained: 2026 Taker Rates and Rebates

Polymarket fees explained: 2026 taker rates $0.75–$1.80/100 shares, fee-free geopolitical markets, and maker rebates, with a worked fee example.

Read guide
Polymarket

Is Polymarket Legal in the US? 2026 Status Explained

Is Polymarket legal in the US? Yes, via its CFTC-regulated exchange since Dec 2025 — the QCEX deal, iOS launch, state bans, and open CFTC filings.

Read guide
Polymarket

Polymarket Sports Trading: In-Game Order Flow Guide

How to trade Polymarket sports markets in-game: reading live order flow, the $0.75/100 fee cap, and working the book during World Cup 2026 liquidity.

Read guide
Polymarket

Polymarket Election Markets 2026: Midterm Odds Now

Polymarket election markets for the Nov 3, 2026 midterms: House and Senate pricing, how fast odds move, and how to trade the swing.

Read guide
Polymarket

10 Polymarket Tips: Mistakes New Traders Keep Making

Polymarket tips from real trading mistakes: fee blindness, market orders, UMA dispute risk, illiquid books, and no bankroll rules. 10 fixes.

Read guide
Polymarket

Polymarket Large Trades: How to Read Block Prints

What Polymarket large trades and block prints reveal on-chain, how to tell informed flow from noise, and how to watch the tape for size.

Read guide

Kalshi

The CFTC-regulated event exchange, end to end.

12 guides
Kalshi Pillar

How Kalshi Works: Complete Kalshi Trading Guide

How Kalshi's CFTC-regulated markets, YES/NO pricing, and bids-only order book work — plus how to fund an account and place your first trade.

Read guide
Kalshi

7 Kalshi Trading Strategies That Actually Work

Seven real Kalshi trading strategies — mispricing, event fades, econ-data plays, spread capture — each with the mechanism and a worked example.

Read guide
Kalshi

Kalshi Arbitrage: How Cross-Venue Spreads Actually Work

How Kalshi arbitrage works against Polymarket — reading the YES/NO sum, calculating fee drag, and why most visible edges vanish before you can fill them.

Read guide
Kalshi

Kalshi Fees Explained: The Full 2026 Fee Formula

Kalshi's exact fee formula, worked examples at $0.50 and $0.90, maker vs. taker rates, and why fees peak at the 50-cent price. Cites the fee schedule.

Read guide
Kalshi

Kalshi API Trading: REST + WebSocket Guide (2026)

How to trade Kalshi programmatically: REST endpoints, WebSocket feeds, the bids-only order book, and where automated tools fit in.

Read guide
Kalshi

Kalshi vs Sportsbook: Exchange vs House Pricing

Kalshi vs sportsbook, explained: CFTC exchange vs state-licensed bookmaker, no vig on an order book, and the May 2026 Third Circuit ruling.

Read guide
Kalshi

Is Kalshi Legit? Regulation, Clearing, Fund Safety

Is Kalshi legit and safe? How its CFTC designation, Kalshi Klear clearinghouse, and segregated funds work, plus the state-by-state nuance.

Read guide
Kalshi

Kalshi Weather Markets: How Temperature Contracts Work

Kalshi weather markets explained: temperature, rain, and snow contracts, how they settle, and why hedgers and forecasters actually use them.

Read guide
Kalshi

Kalshi Fed and CPI Markets: Trade Economic Data

How Kalshi Fed rate and CPI markets work: contract structure, settlement, reading open interest before a release, and a step-by-step trade walkthrough.

Read guide
Kalshi

Kalshi Trading Bot: How API and Market-Making Bots Work

What a Kalshi trading bot does, how API and market-making bots differ, and the safety rails that stop a bad bot from blowing up an account.

Read guide
Kalshi

Best Kalshi Tools: Native, Free, and Third-Party (2026)

An honest roundup of Kalshi tools — native charts and API, free spreadsheet setups, and third-party terminals — with what each one actually does well.

Read guide
Kalshi

How to Read Kalshi Charts: Candles, Volume, and OI

How to read Kalshi charts: candlesticks, volume, and open interest together, what rising OI plus price signals, and how to spot divergence.

Read guide

Prediction Markets

How event contracts work across platforms.

12 guides
Prediction Markets Pillar

What Are Prediction Markets? A 2026 Trader's Guide

What are prediction markets? How YES/NO prices act as live probability, the top venues in 2026, and how accurate they've actually been since 1988.

Read guide
Prediction Markets

Prediction Market Arbitrage: How It Actually Works

How prediction market arbitrage works: Polymarket vs Kalshi fee math, slippage, execution risk, and why most spreads aren't free money.

Read guide
Prediction Markets

Best Prediction Market Platforms 2026, Compared

Polymarket, Kalshi, PredictIt and IEM compared on fees, regulation, and market breadth — an honest 2026 look at the best prediction market platforms.

Read guide
Prediction Markets

7 Prediction Market Strategies That Work in 2026

Seven venue-agnostic prediction market strategies: value trading, arbitrage, market making, event fades, and EV plays, with real 2026 numbers.

Read guide
Prediction Markets

How Accurate Are Prediction Markets? 2026 Data

IEM beat 964 polls 74% of the time across five elections. Here's what calibration and Brier-score data actually show about prediction market accuracy.

Read guide
Prediction Markets

Prediction Markets vs. Sports Betting: Key Differences

No vig, no house, price equals probability. How Kalshi and Polymarket event contracts differ from sportsbooks under the 2026 Third Circuit ruling.

Read guide
Prediction Markets

Prediction Markets vs. the Stock Market: Key Differences

Binary event contracts vs. equity ownership: fixed resolution dates, no dividends, and direct exposure to discrete events instead of company fundamentals.

Read guide
Prediction Markets

Prediction Market Liquidity: Why Depth Is Your Edge

Order book depth, spread, and slippage decide whether your edge survives execution. How prediction market liquidity works on Polymarket and Kalshi.

Read guide
Prediction Markets

History of Prediction Markets: 1988 to 2026

The history of prediction markets from the 1988 Iowa Electronic Markets through Intrade, PredictIt, Kalshi, and Polymarket's 2025 US relaunch.

Read guide
Prediction Markets

Prediction Market Regulation in the US: 2026 Guide

How the CFTC regulates Kalshi and Polymarket in 2026: DCM status, the Third Circuit ruling, state bans, and PredictIt's no-action framework.

Read guide
Prediction Markets

2026 Midterms Prediction Markets: Odds & How to Trade

2026 midterms prediction markets explained: current House, Senate, and approval odds on Kalshi and Polymarket, plus how to trade 500+ election markets.

Read guide
Prediction Markets

Prediction Market Terms: The Complete Glossary

Prediction market terms explained: YES/NO shares, UMA oracle, DCM, CLOB, maker/taker, open interest, CVD, Brier score, and 30+ more, defined simply.

Read guide

Trading Craft

The repeatable skills behind an edge.

8 guides
Trading Craft Pillar

Market Making Explained: Spread Capture & Inventory Risk

What market making means in prediction markets: quoting both sides, capturing the spread, managing inventory risk, and avoiding adverse selection.

Read guide
Trading Craft

Order Flow Trading: Reading the Tape in Prediction Markets

How to read order flow trading tape: aggressive vs. passive fills, cumulative volume delta, and absorption, applied to Polymarket and Kalshi order books.

Read guide
Trading Craft

Expected Value Trading: The EV Math for Event Contracts

How to calculate expected value trading on $0-1 prediction-market contracts, with fee-adjusted worked examples from Polymarket and Kalshi's fee schedules.

Read guide
Trading Craft

Backtesting Prediction Markets: Avoiding Lookahead Bias

How to backtest prediction-market strategies: resolution-aware simulation, avoiding lookahead bias and overfitting, paper trading before going live.

Read guide
Trading Craft

Bankroll Management for Event Trading (Kelly Criterion)

Fractional Kelly position sizing for prediction markets: calculate your edge, size the bet, cap drawdown, and avoid ruin — full $10,000 worked example.

Read guide
Trading Craft

Reading Candlestick Charts for Event Contracts

How OHLC candles, wicks, volume, Point of Control, and Cumulative Volume Delta work on $0.01-$0.99 event contracts — and how to read them on Kalshi.

Read guide
Trading Craft

Arbitrage Calculator: Cross-Venue Fee Math Explained

Step-by-step arbitrage calculator math for Polymarket and Kalshi: category fees, round_up(0.07×P×(1-P)), and why a 3-cent edge often nets a loss.

Read guide
Trading Craft

Paper Trading Guide for Event Contracts

How to paper trade Polymarket and Kalshi event contracts before risking capital — what to validate, how long to run it, and the blind spots that bite.

Read guide