How Pregame works
A clear route from a request on the Floor to a confirmed result in your book. Learn what the engine does, what you control, and what your money is exposed to.
Your side of the ticket
You set the rules for an automated parlay book. Bettors request prices; the engine evaluates those requests and submits quotes when your desk is enabled and its checks pass. A confirmed fill makes you the house side of that ticket.
You keep its premium if the parlay loses. If every leg wins, you lose the capital committed to that ticket. Market making is exposure to outcomes, even when the engine does the quoting.
Two sides of every ticket
The bettor pays a premium for a possible payout. Your capital at risk is the difference. These three amounts are easy to confuse, so the Floor and Sweat room keep them distinct.
Where requests come from
Polymarket Combos uses a request-for-quote process: a bettor asks competing makers to price a particular parlay. A request is an opportunity to quote, not a completed trade.
The venue currently allows 400ms for quote submission. Acceptance and execution follow separately. See Polymarket’s RFQ flow.
From request to confirmed fill
- Check scope. Sports, games, teams, leg count, and fair-price band determine whether the request belongs in your book.
- Check market data. Fresh leg books must pass spread, depth, and movement checks. Detected duplicate or related legs are declined.
- Apply your pricing policy. The engine uses the leg marks and your selected margin policy.
- Check capacity and deadline. Available collateral and risk limits constrain size. A request without enough time is skipped.
- Submit, then wait for evidence. Acknowledgment, acceptance, and a confirmed fill are separate stages. The Floor reports the stage it knows.
Autopilot or manual control
The pricing panel uses the same names as the desk. Choose how the engine sets a margin; the engine still owns the final market-data, funding, and execution checks.
- Autopilot: learns from resolved auctions and aims for your selected auction win rate. Selective, Balanced, and More fills choose different targets; none promises that fill rate.
- Manual control: you set a base margin for each leg count. Automatic pricing additions are bypassed; explicit team adjustments still apply.
- Outcome prices: Market follows the market input, Offset adds your adjustment, and Pin price fixes a value until you clear it. These settings change pricing inputs.
Autopilot’s economic floor includes configured fees, minimum edge, applicable risk reserves, spread, and measured adverse selection. Inventory and team adjustments can also affect the margin. The panel identifies when it is showing a fallback rather than enough recent auction evidence.
What an edge depends on
A price above an accurate fair estimate can have positive expected value before costs. That statement has conditions: the probabilities must be well estimated, the quote must cover costs, and the accepted trades must not be systematically worse than the ones you miss.
- Market prices are estimates. A midpoint can lag information or reflect limited liquidity.
- Shared outcomes concentrate losses. Many tickets can depend on the same result.
- More volume does not fix bad pricing. Repeating a negative-value trade increases its expected loss.
Premium, collateral, and your wallet
A collateral-funded house fill combines the bettor’s premium with your capital to fund complementary Combo positions. Economically, you commit the payout minus the premium. An open position is different from spendable wallet cash.
The wallet and ticket views update from confirmed data. A bridge reporting a completed deposit is distinct from a successfully refreshed wallet balance. A game ending is distinct from confirmed market resolution.
When the bettor wins
If all required legs resolve in the bettor’s favor, the house loses the ticket’s capital at risk. The premium is already included in that amount; do not subtract it a second time.
- Per-ticket risk limits the capital committed to one ticket.
- Total open risk limits simultaneous committed exposure across the book.
- Team caps constrain concentration in tickets containing a selected team.
A quick route through Rules
- Scope: choose a leg-count range and fair-price band. Use the sport selector and game panels to shape the available slate.
- Pricing: review Autopilot or Manual control, then inspect the targets and their data source.
- Risk limits: set per-ticket capital, total open risk, and daily fills.
- Teams: include or exclude participants and set concentration caps.
- Save status: wait for Saved. A pending or failed save is not a server-confirmed change.
The presets are starting points, not a statement that a particular book is safe for you. Inspect their actual values before choosing to quote.
What the safeguards do
The engine fails closed when its required conditions are not met. Its checks include available funds, configured limits, fresh usable market data, request deadlines, and a valid enabled desk state. Accounting or connection problems can stop quoting.
These checks protect specific execution conditions. They do not guarantee correct probabilities, uninterrupted service, timely settlement, or profit. The status beside the quoting control tells you what the desk has confirmed.
Watch, prepare, then choose
You can explore the public Floor before signing in. Preseason accounts can inspect the interface while waiting for quoting access. A visible request or an Eligible label is not a simulated fill or a profit forecast.
- Explore requests
- Review your rules
- Check account and funds
- Start only when ready
When you choose Start quoting, wait for the confirmed engine state. To stop new exposure, use Stop quoting and wait for confirmation. Closing the browser does not stop the engine; filled tickets continue to carry risk.
Open the Sweat room to pin tickets, follow their legs, and see which shared outcomes move your book. The bell collects new confirmed activity and connection issues in the current tab session.
Words you will see
- RFQ
- A request for a price on a particular parlay.
- Leg
- One selected outcome in the parlay.
- Fair value
- The model’s estimated parlay probability, starting from the product of leg marks.
- Margin
- The relative markup over estimated fair value. 100 bps is 1%.
- Fill
- A confirmed executed trade. An accepted quote alone is not confirmation of a fill.
- Premium
- The amount paid for the bettor’s side of the ticket.
- Capital at risk
- Your committed capital: possible payout minus premium, before fees.
- Settled net
- Results recognized from confirmed settled tickets in the selected window.
- Chance to pay
- A market-based estimate. It cannot confirm a game result or settle a ticket.