This is how Euan turned $20,000 into $250,000 trading on Polymarket

How did you got into prediction markets?

I can’t quite pinpoint exactly where I found out about Polymarket, I think the first time it popped up on my feed was when people were betting on whether the OceanGate Titan submersible would be found. I remember in November 2024 stumbling across PredictionMarketTrader’s “Road to $100,000 on Polymarket” series on YouTube and being shocked at the financial opportunities and inefficiencies on the platform. I knew instantly that I was built for Polymarket and that I’d succeed.

My first deposit was $100, I turned that into maybe $500 after trading a “Coinbase top 10 app on Friday” market relatively risk free. I then deposited $2k in total and turned it into $20k within a month. I was completely baffled at how easy it was, yes I worked hard but hard work usually gets you $3k in a month, not 20.

What’s your favorite strategy, and what do you think you’re best at? I know you’re relatively good at trading the news — can you tell me more about that?

Well I don’t want to dive too deep into my edge, but yes most of my profits likely come from trading the news. This often tasks you with having your eyes glued to your screen 24/7 waiting for something to happen, tiring but it can pay incredibly well if you’re fast and patient. Nowadays my favourite edge is analysing potential insider activity. As much as you see a lot of posts about insiders on X – the analysis on there is consistently subpar and speculative.

Your biggest win was in the Lord Miles market. Can you walk me through how you figured out that he or his friends were insider trading?

So in the Lord Miles market, everyone was doing research into how achievable a 40 day water fast was and analysing how he was holding up on stream. People were quite confident he would succeed as he seemed to truly want to complete the challenge. There is a lot of edge in thinking outside the box on degen markets like these. Do the research no one else does and maybe 1 in 100 times you find something. This was one of those cases, I found myself suspicious of some of the accounts on “No”. Fresh accounts buying $20,000 seemed a little weird. I couldn’t pin any of the fresh accounts to each other, so I assumed I came to a dead end. Then I thought “well has Miles got any sort of background in crypto?” It seemed he did, and he even happened to have some of his wallets posted in old tweets. I managed to track funds moving through several wallets, originally from Miles’s public wallet to the Polymarket account buying No. Bingo! I was elated when I realised the magnitude of the information I just uncovered. One of the highest interest markets on Polymarket is being insider traded and I’m the only one that knows! I then contacted Dropper (a prominent Polymarket trader who is well versed in understanding the blockchain) about my findings and he managed to track 7 accounts back to Miles’s wallet. It was extremely clear to us Miles was orchestrating a plan to throw the challenge and profit from it. The most profitable thing to do here was stay silent and collect shares so I collected 120k shares at an average of 34c. The waiting game starts, day 30 is the last day we hear off him. The market goes in to panic and it leaks that he’s been betting against himself. I sell off at an average of 70c for almost 50k profit, my biggest win on the site. Not as big a winner as Miles himself though, he made $400k!

Do you talk to people about prediction markets in real life? Do they know you trade on Polymarket? What do they say about it?

The first people I spoke to about Polymarket were my parents. I’d just finished my degree and travelling and they were expecting that I’d get a job soon. Unfortunately for them, I’d just started Polymarket and made $4k in my first week. My parents (the haters that they are) were skeptical about my profitability lasting. Jokes on them 1 year later I’m $250k in profit.

Most people don’t really understand what I do and most just assume I’m a loser with a gambling addiction, but there is much more that goes into trading on Polymarket than the usual “Oh I reckon this team will win”. Winning on Polymarket takes patience, conviction, research all abilities that typical gamblers usually lack.

Walk me through your favourite win. How did you do it, and how much did you make?

I’ve had a few 5 figure wins in my time on Polymarket, but my favourite one has to be the “How many times will Taylor Swift be shown on broadcast?” bet during Superbowl LIX. Normally, Taylor gets shown a lot during Chiefs games, she was shown 12 times at the 2024 Superbowl for example. There’s a dedicated camera on her and whenever Kelce scores or makes a big play, the broadcast cuts to her reaction. However, this time was different. I read a Daily Mail article a day before the match stating that Taylor wouldn’t have a camera dedicated to her. I knew there was opportunity to be had here, traders were pricing the chance of her being shown only once on stream at 2%. Sounds like a value bet to me, bought in for $250 (0.5% port) to return 10.5k. She appeared on screen in the second quarter, my heart was pounding but I knew I’d made a good bet here. A few close calls with some celebrity cams and Kelce plays but at full time she’d only been shown once. +$10k, sensational feeling.

What’s your biggest loss? What did you learn from it?

Oh George Simion, what a nasty character. This one was an expensive lesson. It was the final round of the Romanian election, a head-to-head. George Simion vs Dan Nicusor, George Simion just came off a big win in the first round of the election, gaining 41% of the vote. Other candidates Dan Nicusor and Crin Antonescu getting 21% and 20% respectively. Having such a big lead in the first round and losing in the second was unheard of. Many smart election traders had done extensive research and believed strongly that Simion would win the election. Not just that, they were putting large portions of their bankrolls on the line. For me this is a big signal, every time I’d seen this group of strong bettors size up this large, it had always gone their way. I didn’t want to miss out, and I sized up too. Unfortunately, this one didn’t go as planned and I lost $20k betting on Simion. These sharp traders maintain that betting on Simion was +EV and +EV bets do lose. The issue for me is I designated 20% of my bankroll to a bet I truly knew nothing about just because I didn’t want to miss out on the fun. Turns out it wasn’t much fun. After that, I chose to only size up when I know the facts, not when others do. You must back yourself in this game!

You currently have a large position in the “Gemini 3.0 releasing before Nov 30” market. Why did you decide to buy so much? What did you find out? Are you planning to buy more?

I currently have $11k riding on Gemini 3.0 to release before November 30. My thesis you ask? Well, I believe strongly that I’m tracking insider activity on this market. A series of accounts that showed blatant insider betting on previous OpenAI announcements and releases are betting big bucks on Gemini 3.0 to release in November. Who knows what information they have, but I’m betting that they have good information. Potential Gemini 3.0 leaks are also ramping up on X – a good sign.

You also hold a big position in “NO new Up Only podcast releasing in November.” Why did you decide to buy this? What did you find out? Are you planning to buy more?

I managed to enter this bet at 13c for 20k shares due to of a series of mishappenings, starting with a post from a trusted X account and ending with an unfortunate trader bonding an event at 87 cents that was probably worth about 50. A known X account @zoomerfied that often tweets breaking crypto news tweeted that a UpOnly podcast episode was scheduled for the 31st of October. This happened to not be the case, and the X account was going off an old Twitch schedule that had been scheduling livestreams every Thursday for years. Misinformed bettors then bought the market up to 99c unaware of the information being false. Smart traders (including me lol) then started buying N at incredibly cheap prices. Now sat on a 20k share position not aware of the true probability of a podcast releasing this month, I am progressively selling off my shares every day and hopefully locking in a nice 5 figure profit.

Are there any new types of markets you’d like to see on Polymarket?

I’d like Polymarket to take initiative and hop on online trends quickly, I believe people would love to bet on developing stories on social media. It would bring in new users and could help make Polymarket mainstream and a household name.

You’ve recently been known for tracking insiders in your trades. Do you think insiders are a good or bad thing for Polymarket? Should Polymarket try to remove them from the platform? Do you think it’s illegal for them to “insider trade”? What tools do you use to spot insiders?

I’m new to the “tracking insiders biz” but getting quite good at it and it’s becoming a frequent edge of mine. Insiders are good and bad. One of the negatives of insiders is they take money from regular users and often won’t reinvest it into the site, funds end up being extracted and taken off the platform. On the other hand, Polymarket acts as a medium allowing for us to hear the news before the news. We receive privileged information that no one else has. They’re a part of the site and you must come to terms with that, avoiding them is doable. Having traded on this platform a year, it’s easy to spot suspicious activity, yet degenerate gamblers can often be confused with insiders. Insiders are present on probably less than 1% of the markets on Polymarket, so if you’re a casual bettor you shouldn’t worry about them too much. However, if you’re looking to take sizeable positions in markets, it’s best to familiarise yourself with what suspicious activity is. Things that make me suspicious of insiders:

1. Several new accounts on one side on a market
2. If these accounts are linked on chain to the same person
3. Accounts buying at such “terrible” prices in size such that they couldn’t possibly just be gambling

In terms of my exact methods, I don’t want to leak that as the more people that learn, the more competition I have. I personally learned to filter through the blockchain by trial and error and a little advice from a friend but once you get the hang of it, it’s quite easy.

It looks like you own offsetting YES and NO shares on the Vance Prez market — what’s the strategy there?

I am splitting USDC into 1 share of Y and one share of N. This is to lock my money up temporarily so I don’t accidentally misclick my whole balance but also so I can receive 4% yield on my holdings. Currently 2028 markets pay out this 4% APY daily but in the future, I believe that we will be getting 4% yield on all positions and cash.

What are your biggest lessons, tips, books, or sources of information for new traders?

The 10 things you need to be a profitable trader:

1. Time
2. Patience (don’t bet impulsively. Have reason for every bet you place). It’s also fine to be on the sidelines and watch what happens in a market if you have doubts about your knowledge. With experience you’ll begin to see orderbook patterns as you collect more data in your brain.
3. Sizing your bets according to how strong you believe your edge to be.
4. Don’t bother with betting on crypto prices or sport. Very few people have an edge there. Betting on sports is acceptable but 1 - have a foolproof method for getting edge. or 2 - size small on your gambles.
5. Be in conversation with other traders, ideally not on X (most people on there don’t know what they’re talking about). I’d advise joining the discord servers which have all sorts of people that bet on the platform. Most of them are looking for edges rather than being degen gamblers. http://discord.gg/polysquare and http://discord.gg/polyalpha are good for that.
6. Research a market harder than the rest of everyone betting in the market. Maybe you’ll find something.
7. Never use market orders. You should be using the orderbook and placing limit orders.
8. Trust your opinion first but stay open to strong arguments on the other side. Don’t marry your position.
9. Find your edge and stick to it. What are you already informed about? What market would you enjoy researching?
10. You can start small. Many of the best traders began with three-figure deposits.