Polymarket spreads and totals vs DraftKings: the same line on 26 of 31 spreads

A sportsbook posts one spread and one total on a game and prices both sides near -110. Polymarket does it the other way around. It lists a ladder of half-point lines, each a separate market with its own order book, and lets the price on each line float. One line on the ladder ends up priced near 50¢, and this study calls it the even line.

The moneyline study at 0xinsider.com/research/use-0xinsider-for-kalshi-draftkings found that Polymarket, Kalshi, and DraftKings price the same game almost identically. This page checks the two markets a DraftKings reader uses most. In 26 of 31 games, Polymarket's even spread line was exactly the number DraftKings had posted, and in 29 it was within half a point. For totals it was 27 of 41 and 32.

So a wallet read taken on a 0xinsider game page carries to the DraftKings spread and total as well as the moneyline. The ladder also shows something a single posted line cannot: what the market thinks of every other number.

The capture ran once, at 17:35 UTC on September 18, 2026, and read two public endpoints: Polymarket's spread and total markets, and ESPN's scoreboard, which publishes the DraftKings spread, the total and the price on each side. It covered NFL, college football and MLB games starting September 18 to 21, 2026.

A game counts when DraftKings had a line with a price on both sides and Polymarket had a line priced from 40¢ to 60¢ with a book 5¢ wide or tighter. Every NFL game met that on both markets. Most college football games did not: DraftKings had a spread on 73 of them and Polymarket had a tight line near even on 8, a day before kickoff. An MLB run line is 1.5 on both venues by convention, so an MLB game counts only when its 1.5 line sat from 40¢ to 60¢.

The unit throughout is the game. Every line on a ladder settles on the same final score, so counting lines would count one game many times.

The NFL is the cleanest comparison, because each ladder carried a median of 26 tight lines. Polymarket's even line was the DraftKings number in 13 of 15 games and within half a point in all 15. The two games that differ are the two where DraftKings sat on a whole number, 7 in both cases. Polymarket lists half-point lines only, so its even line was 7.5.

The widest price gap in the whole study was Packers at Jets. DraftKings had the home side at +3.5 and priced it at 48.9% with the margin removed. Polymarket priced the same number at 52.5%. The companion study had the two venues' moneylines on that game 2.19 points apart.

Polymarket's even total was the DraftKings total in 13 of 15 NFL games, and the price at that number differed by a median of 0.50 points. No NFL total in the sample differed by more than 1.50 points.

Finding the same number is half the comparison; the other half is the price at it. Where Polymarket listed the DraftKings line, its price is read directly. Where DraftKings sat on a whole number, Polymarket's price is read between the two half-point lines around it. Across 29 spreads, Polymarket's price differed from the DraftKings price with the margin removed by a median of 0.58 points, and 96.6% of games were within 2 points. Across 35 totals the median was 0.50 and every game was within 1.50.

Spreads and totals are priced near even on both sides, so how the margin is removed barely matters here. On moneylines it moved a heavy favorite by more than a point. On a line priced -110 on each side, the two common methods agree to a few hundredths of a point.

DraftKings' two sides added up to a median of 4.71 points over 100% on spreads and 4.75 on totals, both higher than the 4.25 it charged on moneylines in the companion study. Buying both sides of Polymarket's even line at the ask and paying the sports taker fee cost a median of 3.50¢ on spreads and 3.50¢ on totals. Polymarket cost less in 30 of 31 spreads and 40 of 41 totals.

Polymarket's taker fee is 0.05 times the price times one minus the price, which is largest at 50¢, and a spread or total sits near 50¢ by construction. These are the markets where Polymarket's fee is highest, and it still came in more than 1¢ under the overround. A resting order that fills pays no taker fee.

A ladder looks deep and mostly is not. The even line held 67.9% of all spread and total volume in the sample, and the lines one point either side held another 25.7%. The median book on both was 1¢ wide. Three or more points away there were 914 quoted lines, the median book was 4¢ wide, only 25.1% of them had ever traded, and together they held 3.0% of the volume.

That matters for reading wallets. A large trade on the even line moved a liquid price and is worth reading. A trade on a line 6 points away may be the only trade that line ever saw, and its price tells you about one order.

Open the game on 0xinsider and find the spread family in the Markets section. Look for the line priced nearest 50¢. If it matches the number on your DraftKings screen, the two venues agree on the game, and the Top holders tab shows which wallets hold each side of that line and the grade each has earned.

If your DraftKings line is a whole number, such as 3 or 7, Polymarket will not list it. Read the two half-point lines around it. If Polymarket has the favorite at 53¢ laying 6.5 and 47¢ laying 7.5, a line of 7 sits near even on both venues.

When the numbers differ by a point or more, one venue has moved and the other has not, or the Polymarket ladder is thin. Check the book width on the game page before reading anything into it: a line with a wide book is a quote and not yet a price.

It does not show which venue was right. None of these games had been played, so the study measures agreement. The point spread study at 0xinsider.com/research/point-spreads-polymarket and the totals study at 0xinsider.com/research/over-under-polymarket-sports score Polymarket's lines against results.

It is one moment, before the start, in three US leagues, and thin for college football. The DraftKings line is the one ESPN's scoreboard publishes, which can differ by state and can lag the book itself. It leaves out alternate lines, which DraftKings sells at other numbers and which would be the fair comparison for the rest of Polymarket's ladder.

Both sources are public and need no key. The capture script, the captured fields exactly as each provider returned them, the analysis script, its output and a row for each game are published at github.com/0xinsider/research under three-venue-prices, beside the moneyline capture they extend. Running the analysis script on the saved capture reproduces every figure on this page with no database and no account.