The "money-making dream" of the prediction market: Why a 51% win rate still results in a loss of 2 million?

【ChainWen】A trader celebrated on a prediction trading platform for 35 days, accumulating 53 trades. Seemingly a 51% win rate (winning 27 trades), but what was the result? Lost over $2 million.

The most eye-catching was a $936,000 profit trade—then lost $1.58 million on another. With an average bet of $400,000, this guy is playing for real.

Where’s the problem? The strategy is completely unbalanced. This trader tends to enter at prices like 0.51-0.67 when the “consensus direction” looks solid. In other words, limited profit potential (small upward space), and when losing, he clears the position immediately (no stop-loss on the downside). He tends to go all-in on “high-confidence” events like popular NBA or football teams, with predictable results—frequent positions going to zero.

This isn’t bad luck; it’s a structural issue:

Avoid chasing at high prices — Prices above 0.5 mean the market has already priced in the information. Where’s your advantage?

Control risk per trade — Betting $400,000 at once, a single loss can be devastating.

Have take-profit and stop-loss — Don’t let winning positions go to waste, and don’t let losing positions fall to zero.

Calculate risk-reward ratio clearly — If the odds structure is poor (full downside vs limited upside), don’t play. No matter how strong your gambling instinct, walk away.

Prediction markets seem transparent and quick to reflect information, but this precisely indicates that if you have no advantage, don’t force it.