---
title: "Fading the Crowd on Polymarket Sports Markets: 844 Games Where the D and F Money Piled Onto One Side"
canonical: "https://0xinsider.com/research/fading-the-crowd-polymarket-sports"
datePublished: "2026-09-13"
dateModified: "2026-09-13"
description: "When 90% or more of the D and F wallets' pre-kickoff money sat on one side of a Polymarket sports market, that side was priced at 67.3 cents and won 63.6% of the time, 3.68 points short. A flat fade returned 16.4%."
---

# Fading the Crowd on Polymarket Sports Markets: 844 Games Where the D and F Money Piled Onto One Side

Last updated: 2026-09-13
Canonical: https://0xinsider.com/research/fading-the-crowd-polymarket-sports

Betting against the public is a sportsbook habit built on ticket counts, because the book cannot see who its bettors are. Polymarket can. This study takes every large pre-kickoff buy on a Polymarket sports market from June 1 to September 12, 2026, grades each buyer by the record it held that day, and asks what happens when the poorly graded money agrees. In 844 markets where 90% or more of the D and F wallets' dollars sat on one side, that side was priced at 67.3 cents and won 63.6% of the time: minus 3.68 points, with an interval that clears zero. A flat stake against it returned 16.4% before fees. The same consensus among S, A and B wallets was already in the price.

## Betting against the public, with the public identified

At a sportsbook, fading the public means betting against the side most tickets are on, on the theory that casual money is wrong more often than the price. The book publishes ticket percentages and the bettor guesses who is behind them. It is a guess because the book never says who its customers are.

On Polymarket every buy is a wallet, every wallet has a settled record, and 0xinsider grades that record from S to F. The sharp money study at 0xinsider.com/research/sharp-money-polymarket-sports found that D and F wallets lose to the price by about a point per buy and S, A and B wallets beat it by about the same. A point per buy is small. The question here is what happens when several D and F wallets land on the same side of the same game before kickoff, which is the situation a fader is looking for.

## 71,543 pre-kickoff buys across 7,966 settled markets

The sample is every buy of $1,000 or more that 0xinsider recorded on a Polymarket sports moneyline, spread or total between June 1 to September 12, 2026, placed before the market's kickoff time, on a market that settled after the trade, at 2 to 98 cents. 71,543 buys, 4,651 wallets, 7,966 markets, $1.42 billion in stakes. The grade is the one the wallet held on the day of the buy.

D and F wallets made 22,735 of the buys and S, A and B wallets 17,241. The rest were C wallets or wallets with no grade yet. 3,679 of the markets had at least one D or F buy before kickoff, 3,548 had at least one S, A or B buy, and 1,972 had both.

For each market the query adds up the pre-kickoff dollars by cohort and side. The crowd lean is the share of a market's D and F dollars on its heavier side, over markets with $5,000 or more of D and F money across two or more buys. Ninety percent or more means the D and F wallets agreed. Under 70% means they split. The side price is the average price the D and F buyers paid on the side they leaned to.

## One D or F buy is worth little; a consensus of them is worth fading

Taken one buy at a time, the D and F cohort in this window paid 57.5 cents and won 57.1% of the time, minus 0.42 points. C and ungraded wallets came in at the same minus 0.42. S, A and B wallets paid 60.6 cents and won 60.6%, minus 0.03. Before kickoff, buy by buy, the grade separates almost nothing, which is what the sharp money study found.

Group the buys by market and the picture changes. In the 844 markets where 90% or more of the D and F money sat on one side, that side was priced at 67.3 cents and won 63.6% of the time: minus 3.68 points, with a market-resampled 95% interval from -6.71 to -0.69. Those markets carried $111 million of D and F money, from 4.2 D or F wallets each on average.

In the 506 markets where the D and F money was 70 to 90% one way, the heavier side came in at minus 1.43 points, interval minus 5.68 to plus 2.75. In the 645 markets where it split under 70%, the heavier side came in at plus 0.77. The penalty is a property of agreement. The more of the poorly graded money that landed on one side, the worse that side did against its price.

## The S, A and B consensus is priced in

The same split for S, A and B money finds nothing to fade and nothing to follow. In the 1,060 markets where 90% or more of the S, A and B dollars sat on one side, that side was priced at 70.3 cents and won 70%: minus 0.28 points, interval -2.81 to plus 2.34. The 70 to 90% band came in at plus 0.07 and the split band at minus 2.08, both with intervals well across zero.

This agrees with the timing study at 0xinsider.com/research/when-large-sports-bets-land: the graded wallets' edge in sports opens after kickoff, and before it they buy at prices that already reflect what they know. A well-graded consensus before the game says the price is probably right. A poorly graded consensus says it is probably a little high.

## When the cohorts disagree, the graded side wins

In 1,684 markets both cohorts had $5,000 or more before kickoff. In 910 of them they were on the same side, and that side, a 69 cent favorite on average, came in at about minus 2 points for both cohorts. When everyone likes the favorite, the favorite is a little too expensive.

In the other 774 markets the cohorts took opposite sides. The S, A and B side was priced at 52.1 cents and won 53.0%, plus 0.88 points. The D and F side was priced at 48.3 cents and won 46.4%, minus 1.92. A bettor who took the graded side of every disagreement paid a fair price for a slight edge. A bettor who took the crowd's side paid 48 cents for a 46% chance.

## The crowd loses most when it loves a favorite

Split the 844 one-sided markets by which side of 50 cents the crowd sat on. In 694 of them the D and F money was on the favorite, at 72.5 cents on average, and the favorite won 68.3% of the time: minus 4.2 points, interval -7.45 to -1.05. A flat stake on the underdog in every one of those games returned plus 19.22% before fees.

In the 150 markets where the crowd was on the underdog, at 43.3 cents, the underdog won 42.0%: minus 1.25 points, with an interval from minus 9.05 to plus 6.71 that says nothing either way. The crowd's error, in this window, was overpaying for favorites it agreed on.

## Baseball, tennis and esports; soccer less so

Soccer supplies 363 of the 844 markets, and the crowd side there was a heavy favorite, 78.1 cents on average, which won 76.6% of the time: minus 1.48 points. Baseball's 233 markets are the opposite case, a crowd side at 52.7 cents that won 47.2%, minus 5.50. Tennis, 108 markets, minus 4.67. Esports, 83 markets, minus 4.35.

Read the soccer number carefully. A crowd that piles onto a 78 cent favorite and sees it win 77% of the time has lost a point and a half, which is about the fee. The crowd penalty in soccer is small because the crowd there mostly bought strong favorites that did what strong favorites do. In baseball, tennis and esports the crowd bought closer to even money and was wrong by four to five points.

## Totals carry the widest crowd penalty

By market type the crowd side came in at minus 3.20 points on 482 moneylines, minus 4.85 on 264 totals and minus 3.05 on 92 spreads. The six child moneylines are too few to read.

A crowd that agrees on an over or an under is agreeing on a number, and the sharp money study found the same shape from the other direction: spreads and totals are where the graded cohort separated most from the poorly graded one. Numbers are harder to price than picks, and the wallets with a bad record at pricing them keep the record.

## Every month has the same sign

June, 535 markets, minus 4.01 points. July, 190 markets, minus 3.85. August, 92 markets, minus 2.08. September through the 12th, 27 markets, minus 1.24. The sign holds in every month and the size shrinks with the sample.

The shrinking sample has a mechanical cause. The alert floor rose from $1,000 to $10,000 in August, so August and September record only the largest buys, and the graded population thinned in the same months. June is two thirds of the sample and carries most of the finding.

## Raising the dollar floor makes it worse for the crowd

The $5,000 floor is a choice, so here are the others. At $10,000 or more of D and F money, 766 markets, the crowd side came in at minus 3.17 points. At $25,000, 565 markets, minus 4.10. At $50,000, 356 markets, minus 5.55. At $100,000, 192 markets, minus 4.33. The penalty does not come from the small markets. Where the crowd bet bigger, it was wrong by more.

## What a fade would have returned

The edge in points is the finding. The return is what a bettor feels, so here it is with its assumption stated. In the 844 one-sided markets, a flat stake on the crowd's side, held to settlement, returned -5.95%. A flat stake on the other side, bought at one minus the crowd's average price, returned plus 16.37%. In the 694 favorite markets the fade returned plus 19.22%. In the 150 underdog markets, plus 3.19%.

The assumption is the price. The fade return prices the other side at the complement of what the crowd paid. In the 546 one-sided markets where someone bought the other side before kickoff, they paid 37.3 cents on average against a complement of 36.83, half a cent more. Half a cent on a 37 cent contract is 1.3% of the stake, and Polymarket's sports taker fee at that price is about 3% of the stake. Take the fade return as roughly plus 12% after both, and as a point estimate that shares the edge's wide interval.

## What this study does not show

The crowd lean is known only after the crowd has bet. A bettor fading at kickoff sees the same lean this study computes, but the price at kickoff may have moved from the crowd's average entry. This study scores the fade at the complement of that entry, not at the closing price.

It is pre-kickoff only. The sharp money study found the graded wallets' whole edge in-play, and a crowd lean that forms during a game is not measured here.

The one-sided markets are a selected set: games where poorly graded wallets bet $5,000 or more before kickoff, which skews to popular games and heavy favorites. The result says what happened in those games, not in a random game.

It is one window, weighted to June, with an interval that clears zero by less than a point. A rerun that lands at minus 2 or minus 5 is the same finding. One that lands at zero is a different one.

And it scores every position as held to settlement, before fees, at the buyer's own price. It is a test of whether the crowd's agreement carries information, not the audited return of a strategy.

## How to use it on 0xinsider

The two cohorts in this study are on every game on a 0xinsider sports board. The Profitable wallets strip on each game draws two bars per side: Smart, the share of the profitable wallets' money on that side, and Market, the chance the price implies. A Smart bar that runs well past the Market bar on one side is the S, A and B consensus, and this study says its price is about right. The verdict line names the side when the money leans.

The other cohort is on the event page. Open a game from a board, 0xinsider.com/sports/soccer, 0xinsider.com/sports/mlb, 0xinsider.com/sports/tennis or 0xinsider.com/sports/esports, and the Top holders tab in the rail lists the wallets on each outcome with the grade each has earned. A column of D and F wallets on one side before kickoff, with the graded wallets absent or on the other side, is the pattern in these 844 markets.

The whale alerts feed at 0xinsider.com/whale-alerts shows each large buy as it lands with the buyer's grade, so a run of D and F buys on one side of tonight's game is visible as it forms. The guide at 0xinsider.com/learn/betting-against-the-public-explained covers the habit from the sportsbook side and how to read it here, and 0xinsider.com/learn/how-to-find-sharp-money-polymarket-sports walks through the boards, the event page and the feed in order.

## How to check it yourself

Every number on this page comes from one read-only run of a set of queries against the production database at 16:15 UTC on September 13, 2026. The query text, the raw output, the market-level export and the bootstrap script are public at github.com/0xinsider/research, under polymarket-sports-markets, in the files whose names carry the words fade-crowd. The export is committed, so the intervals reproduce with the bootstrap alone and no database.

The universe is the sharp money study's universe restricted to buys placed before the market's kickoff time on a moneyline, child moneyline, spread or total. The grade is the most recent daily ranking dated on or before the trade day. The window starts on June 1 because grade coverage widened that month, and it cannot be extended backward for the reasons the sharp money study gives.

Expect your counts to grow as open markets settle. The 90% band's edge should hold inside its interval. The month rows will fill in from the right.

## FAQ

### Does betting against the public work on Polymarket sports markets?

In the 844 markets from June 1 to September 12, 2026 where 90% or more of the D and F wallets' pre-kickoff money sat on one side, that side was priced at 67.3 cents and won 63.6% of the time, minus 3.68 points with a 95% interval from -6.71 to -0.69. A flat stake against it returned plus 16.37% before fees. When the D and F money was split, there was nothing to fade.

### Who counts as the crowd in this study?

Wallets that 0xinsider graded D or F on the day of the buy, based on their own settled record. A market enters the study when those wallets had $5,000 or more on it across two or more buys before kickoff, and the crowd lean is the share of that money on the heavier side.

### Should you fade the sharp money too?

No. In the 1,060 markets where 90% or more of the S, A and B money sat on one side, that side was priced at 70.3 cents and won 70%, minus 0.28 points with an interval from -2.81 to plus 2.34. A well-graded consensus before kickoff was already in the price.

### Does fading the crowd work in every sport?

The crowd side lost in every sport with 40 or more one-sided markets: baseball minus 5.50 points, tennis minus 4.67, esports minus 4.35 and soccer minus 1.48. The soccer penalty is small because the soccer crowd mostly bought heavy favorites around 78 cents that won about as often as priced.

### How do I see which side the crowd is on for a game?

Open the game from a 0xinsider sports board. The Top holders tab on the event page lists the wallets on each outcome with their grades, the Profitable wallets strip shows the side the S, A and B wallets favor, and the whale alerts feed shows each large buy with the buyer's grade as it lands.