How to use Polymarket: deposits, first trade and payouts

To use Polymarket, you create an account on polymarket.com, deposit crypto (it is converted to pUSD on Polygon), then buy “Yes” or “No” shares priced between $0 and $1. If your side wins, each share pays $1. You can sell at any time before the market resolves. The whole flow takes about ten minutes if you already hold USDC.

This guide covers setup, reading a market, placing orders cheaply and getting paid out, with numbers from Polymarket’s docs as of September 2026.

Can you use Polymarket in your country?

Check this first. Polymarket’s geographic restrictions page (updated August 2026) lists 39 fully blocked countries, including:

• United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Poland, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand
• Sanctioned jurisdictions such as Russia, Belarus, Iran, Cuba and North Korea

Some regions are also blocked inside otherwise open countries: the Canadian provinces of Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia and Alberta, plus occupied Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk.

Polymarket’s terms ban using a VPN to get around this. If you are blocked, an account can be restricted with funds inside, which is a much worse outcome than simply not trading.

US residents: Polymarket US is a separate iOS app under CFTC oversight. Polymarket’s help center says its accounts are not connected to polymarket.com. This guide covers the international site.

Step 1: Create an account

1. Go to polymarket.com and sign up.
2. Choose email, Google, or an external wallet such as MetaMask or Rabby.
3. Polymarket creates a smart wallet for you on Polygon. According to its docs, every account created since May 4, 2026 uses a “Deposit Wallet”, and Polymarket’s relayer submits transactions for it, so you don’t need POL for gas.

If you sign in with email or Google, your account is recoverable through Polymarket’s recovery tool. If you sign in with an external wallet, protecting that seed phrase is your job. Consider using a hardware wallet (setup guide here).

Step 2: Deposit funds

Click Deposit and pick a method. The most reliable option for crypto users is Transfer Crypto:

1. Choose the token and the network you are sending from.
2. Copy the deposit address Polymarket shows for that network. Your EVM, Solana, Bitcoin and Tron addresses are different.
3. Send at least the minimum, then refresh once the transfer confirms.

Whatever you send is converted to pUSD, Polymarket’s collateral token. It is an ERC-20 on Polygon backed 1:1 by USDC. Day to day, you can think of it as your USD balance.

Source chain	Minimum deposit (per Polymarket docs)
Polygon, Arbitrum, Base, Optimism, BNB Chain, Solana	$2
Ethereum	$7
Bitcoin, Tron	$9

Minimums change, and the help center quotes different examples, so trust the number the deposit window shows. Deposits below the minimum sit pending until later deposits push the total over it.

Common mistakes:

• Sending to the address for the wrong chain. Polymarket runs a recovery tool at recovery.polymarket.com, but don’t rely on it.
• Sending an unsupported token. The supported assets list is the reference.
• Bridging a large amount through the built-in route. For deposits over $50,000 from another chain, Polymarket itself suggests a third-party bridge such as deBridge or Across to reduce slippage. Our deBridge guide walks through that.

You can also buy with a card or connect an exchange. Those run through third parties such as MoonPay or Coinbase, which set their own fees and may ask for ID. Polymarket charges nothing for deposits.

Step 3: Read a market before you trade

Every market is a question with a Yes and a No share.

Price is probability. “Yes” at 65¢ means the market puts the chance at roughly 65%. If you buy at 65¢ and it resolves Yes, you get $1 per share: a 35¢ profit on 65¢ risked, before fees.

The displayed price is a midpoint. Polymarket shows the middle of the best bid and best ask. If the bid is 34¢ and the ask is 40¢, the page shows 37¢, but a market buy pays 40¢. When the spread is wider than 10¢, it shows the last trade instead. Always look at the order book, not just the headline number.

The rules decide, not the title. Each market has a rules section naming the resolution source, end date and edge cases. Polymarket’s docs warn that the title describes the question, but the rules define the outcome. Read them. Most “I was right but lost” stories come from skipped rules.

Check liquidity. Polymarket has no maximum order size, but a thin book means your order walks up the price. If the order book shows only $300 at the ask, a $2,000 market order will fill at progressively worse prices.

Step 4: Place your first order

On the market page, choose Buy, pick Yes or No, and pick an order type.

Market order (taker)

It fills immediately at the best available prices and pays a taker fee. The fee depends on the category and peaks at a 50¢ price. For example, in Politics, the fee on 100 shares at 50¢ is $1.00 on a $50 trade. In Crypto markets, the same trade costs $1.75. Geopolitics markets are fee-free.

Limit order (maker)

You set the price, and the order sits on the book until someone fills it. Resting limit orders pay no fee, and they may earn a share of the maker rebate pool. The trade-off is that your order might not fill, or might fill only partly.

A practical habit: if the spread is 48¢ bid and 52¢ ask, place a buy limit at 50¢ instead of paying 52¢ plus the fee. On a $1,000 Politics position, that is roughly $38 of better price plus about $19 of avoided fees, if the order fills. Full numbers are in our Polymarket fees breakdown.

After a fill, the position appears in your portfolio with its current value.

Step 5: Exit early or hold to resolution

You can sell at any time. Sell into the bid (a taker trade, with a fee) or post a limit sell (no fee). Selling early locks in profit or limits a loss, and it frees capital that would otherwise sit idle until resolution.

If you hold, resolution works through the UMA Optimistic Oracle, according to Polymarket’s resolution docs:

1. Someone proposes the outcome and posts a bond (typically $750).
2. A 2-hour challenge period follows.
3. With no dispute, the market resolves. If disputed, it goes to a second proposal round and possibly a vote by UMA token holders. That process takes about 4–6 days in total.
4. Winning shares redeem for $1 of pUSD each. Losing shares are worth $0. In rare “unknown” outcomes, both sides redeem at 50¢.

Some fast crypto up/down markets resolve from Chainlink price feeds instead. Since August 2026, they use time-weighted average prices.

Step 6: Withdraw

Withdrawals are free on Polymarket’s side. pUSD is unwrapped to USDC and can be sent to Polygon or bridged to another supported chain. Two cautions from Polymarket’s docs:

• The swap to native USDC goes through a Uniswap pool that occasionally runs dry. If a large withdrawal fails, split it into smaller amounts or wait.
• You can withdraw pUSD directly, but some exchanges no longer accept pUSD deposits. Withdraw USDC to an exchange.

Practical strategy basics

This is how the mechanics work, not a system for winning.

• Price in the fee. Buying Yes at 50¢ in a Crypto market with a market order costs 3.5% of the stake in fees. Your edge has to beat that before you make money.
• Longshots cost more in fees. In percentage terms, fees are highest on cheap shares. At 10¢, a Crypto taker fee is 6.3% of what you spend.
• Capital has a time cost. Buying Yes at 95¢ for a market that resolves in eight months ties up $95 to make $5.
• Thin markets punish size. Split large orders or use limits, and check how much depth sits within 1–2¢ of the price.
• Resolution risk is real. Ambiguous rules and disputes happen. Read the rules and check the resolution source.

Is Polymarket safe?

Polymarket is non-custodial: your pUSD and shares sit in your own smart wallet on Polygon, and settlement is onchain. The risks are smart contract bugs, oracle disputes that go against you, regulatory action in your country, and your own key management if you use an external wallet. Order matching happens offchain through Polymarket’s operator, so you rely on that operator to stay online.

Looking at alternatives? Our Polymarket vs Limitless comparison covers the main Base-based rival, and the Polymarket referral page explains why the referral link carries no bonus.