Definition
What is Polymarket insider?
A Polymarket trader who bets with non-public information or against the consensus and wins at rates statistical models cannot explain by skill alone.
In detail
A Polymarket insider is a wallet whose resolved-bet win rate and PnL distribution diverge from what chance and skill predict for that category of market. The label combines quantitative signals — how far below consensus the wallet entered, its entry-odds-adjusted skill z-score, position concentration, and its funding trail — with statistical tests like binomial p-value. It does not imply a specific person or legal claim; it flags statistical anomalies worth investigating.
How CrowdIntel measures it
A gated 0–100 insider score — a trade only scores if the wallet bought an outcome the market priced at 35c or below. Past that gate, seven components set the number: entry-depth tier, wallet skill z-score and fresh-wallet concentration, against four penalties for bot behaviour, negative PnL, oversized funding clusters and infrastructure funders. Weights are fit to measured edge — win rate minus entry price — across roughly 6,800 resolved alerts, not hand-tuned. Signals that measured negative on resolved outcomes, including bet size, market category and timing clusters, were removed rather than down-weighted. Trades scoring ≥65 are surfaced as insider candidates; investigations are opened when a wallet clears statistical thresholds (≥20 bets, ≥70% win rate, p-value ≤0.1) against expected performance.
Frequently asked
How is a Polymarket insider different from a whale?
A whale is defined by trade size — moving large USDC volume per bet. An insider is defined by win rate and statistical edge relative to the category. Most insiders are small-to-medium whales; most whales are not insiders.
Is insider trading illegal on Polymarket?
Polymarket is an on-chain prediction market; rules vary by jurisdiction. CrowdIntel flags statistical anomalies, not legal violations. Detection enables transparency for other traders, not enforcement.
How reliable are Polymarket insider labels?
Reliability rises with sample size. A wallet with 15 resolved bets at 90% is weak evidence. CrowdIntel requires ≥20 resolved bets, ≥70% win rate, positive PnL, and p-value ≤0.1 before opening an investigation; Bayesian confidence is displayed alongside raw win rate to reduce small-sample bias.
Related terms
- Polymarket whale
A Polymarket wallet that trades significantly larger positions than the median user — typically $5,000+ per bet or $100,000+ lifetime volume.
- Funding cluster
A group of Polymarket wallets that received their initial USDC from the same source address and often coordinate trades — a signature of Sybil behavior or organized insider activity.
- Bayesian win rate
A shrinkage estimate of a wallet's true win rate that combines raw wins-over-bets with a prior — preventing a wallet with 9 wins out of 10 bets from being treated as a 90% sharpshooter.
- P-value (trading)
The probability that an observed win rate could occur by chance alone if the trader had no edge — used to separate genuine skill from lucky streaks.
- Smart money (Polymarket)
Wallets with proven track records of winning more than random chance — used as a leading indicator of where prices will move on Polymarket.