Polymarket is shedding one of its most controversial features for the U.S. version of its betting exchange.
In the U.S., the prediction market operator, as opposed to cryptocurrency token holders, will decide which way all of its binary “yes” or “no” wagers should resolve, chief marketing officer Matthew Modabber confirmed to Sportico.
Government filings in recent months suggested this would be the case. In documents sent to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) outlining some of the specific bets it will offer, Polymarket writes that wager results will be “determined by the exchange in its sole and absolute discretion.”
Internationally, this decision-making power is decentralized. Rather than Polymarket making the call, holders of the cryptocurrency token UMA vote on how disputed markets should settle. The more UMA tokens someone has, the more voting weight they carry.
The UMA method has sparked backlash, with bettors concerned that voters are not always giving an honest assessment of Polymarket contract rules that stipulate the conditions for a “yes” determination.
In an infamous example, a contract offered by Polymarket about whether Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky would wear a “suit” before July devolved into heated semantic debate over what constituted a “suit,” with millions of dollars on the line. The ultimate “no” resolution infuriated “yes” bettors.
More recently, UMA holders resolved a market titled “Will Polymarket U.S. go live in 2025?” as “yes” on Dec. 5 even though much of the public still did not have access. Polymarket U.S. remains waitlist-only, and “no” bettors believe the market was settled too soon.
“Lawyer!!!!!!” wrote one bettor under the pseudo name GetMONEY1312 in the comment section for the market.
Risk Labs, the company that created UMA, did not respond to a request for comment.
By taking control of the resolution process in the U.S., Polymarket will provide users a simpler product and likely reduce conflict. But the move is not guaranteed to eliminate bettor discontent. In scenarios where users disagree on whether a market should resolve to “yes” or “no”—often as a result of markets with resolution stipulations that can be interpreted in multiple ways—the exchange itself will be criticized for its final decision.
