Polymarket launches parlay-style trading in major prediction market overhaul

Polymarket has added a sports feature that lets traders place several predictions inside one combined position. The product is called combo trading, and it became available around June 10.

Each selection inside the package has to finish in the trader’s favor. One wrong result wipes out the whole ticket. That setup gives users a chance at a bigger return than entering every market separately.

The first version only covers sports. Traders can build combos from moneyline, spread, and total markets. Polymarket announced the release on X with the line, “combos are now live.” The company has not given a date for political contests, breaking news contracts, or other event markets to join the product. Those categories remain outside the system.

Polymarket routes combo orders through live quotes instead of its regular order book

The combo orders take advantage of an arrangement that is available in the standard marketplaces of the platform, so Polymarket does not place these orders on its regular open order book. Instead, it makes use of a request-for-quote, which is referred to as an RFQ process.

After submission, market makers get 400 milliseconds to quote. The trader then has five seconds to take the best price. A market maker can also activate Last Look. When that option is on, the liquidity provider gets a final one-second window to accept or reject the fill.

Price providers answer in less than half a second. Users then receive a five-second decision period. Last Look, when available, adds one second before the order becomes final.

RFQ trading is often used in traditional finance when an instrument is harder to price or does not trade well through passive matching. Polymarket is handling combos in a similar way by assigning liquidity providers to price the whole group of outcomes at once.

The company has also opened a public combo-markets API endpoint. Developers do not need the normal authentication tied to Polymarket’s central limit order book to access it. Outside analytics services, trading dashboards, and other software can pull combo information without using the standard order-book login process.

Traders may group the events they think are connected. People with one perspective on wider sports can put their thoughts into practice via one trade as opposed to putting many trades and monitoring them individually. The structure may also be interesting for people who understand sportsbook parlays but have never tried prediction markets.

Polymarket limits the sports rollout while pricing and settlement questions remain open

Some important information regarding the first release is yet to be known by the traders. For example, Polymarket users will have to make sure which sports contracts can be added in a combo. The company still has to clarify some issues regarding how fees would be applied through multiple legs, and the settlement procedure when one outcome settles before others.

There is also a possibility that the liquidity for the packages would be less than in previous single-outcome markets. As the number of market makers will be lesser, there could be less liquidity for the package, resulting in wide bid-offers and poor execution.

Adding politics and other events would widen the product. Polymarket has not said when that could happen. The sports-only setup gives the company room to test pricing, settlement, liquidity, and demand before opening combos across the rest of the site.

This move comes amidst a second controversy that arose almost a month back. Polymarket had been checking whether Kalshi, another platform, was copying their business model after creating a document named ‘Copycat’.

The document was said to contain around 12 items. Polymarket believed Kalshi had released products that looked close to its own offers, sometimes soon after Polymarket introduced them. The platform has hosted contracts tied to sports, weather, and the war involving Iran, giving both companies topics to compete over.

Matthew Modabber, Polymarket’s head of marketing, confirmed the review during a phone interview with The Post. “There have been a couple too many coincidences,” Matthew said.

Shayne also accused the rival of acting on purpose. “There is bad intention in how they copy us. They’re breathing down our neck,” he said. A published image showed Shayne applauding beside the Polymarket logo at the New York Stock Exchange.

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