# How Polymarket Settles: 110,576 Markets, a Median of 2.2 Hours, and 89 Disputes
Vultax measured every Polymarket market that ended between 15 August and 10 September 2026. Most settled within hours of their scheduled end, 37% closed early because the result was already known, and 89 were disputed, rare overall but most common on geopolitics and big markets.
Canonical URL: https://vultax.com/research/how-long-polymarket-takes-to-settle-markets
Author: [Vultax Research](https://vultax.com/editorial-policy)
Published: 2026-09-17
Last public revision: 2026-09-18
Published research snapshots and calculations; these exports do not contain current quotes or live account data. Observation windows and populations are stated in the source captions and methodology. Missing metadata is unknown, not zero. Figures describe Polymarket markets with a scheduled end between 15 August and 10 September 2026, found through nine topic tags. Settlement times are closing times from Polymarket's data, not tested payouts. Nothing here is a recommendation to trade or financial advice.
## Key figures
- Median time from scheduled end to settlement: 2.2 hours — 69,072 markets that closed after their scheduled end, 15 August to 10 September 2026; 90% within six hours
- Markets that closed before their scheduled end: 37% — 41,151 of 110,576, because the outcome was already known; 84% of esports markets
- Markets disputed: 89 — 0.08% of all markets; 0.5% of markets that traded $100,000 or more; 3.5% of geopolitics markets
- Marked as resolved automatically: 99.7% — In Polymarket's market data; politics was the lowest at 91.5%
## The short answer
Most Polymarket markets settle within a few hours, and very few are fought over. Vultax pulled every market Polymarket listed under nine major topic tags whose scheduled end fell between 15 August and 10 September 2026, excluding the short crypto up-or-down series: 110,576 markets that traded $1.42 billion. Of the 69,072 that closed after their scheduled end, half had closed within 2.2 hours and 90% within six. Another 41,151, 37% of the total, closed before their scheduled end because the answer was already known.
Disputes were rare: 89 markets, 0.08%. They were not spread evenly. Markets that traded $100,000 or more were disputed six times as often, 0.5%, and geopolitics markets, whose questions meet messy events, 3.5% of the time, with a median wait of 74 hours after their scheduled end.
Almost every market, 99.7%, is marked in Polymarket's data as resolved automatically. The exceptions sit in politics, where 8.5% needed something else.
## How settlement works
Polymarket does not decide outcomes itself. According to its documentation, a proposer posts the answer with a bond, typically $750, and a two-hour challenge period follows. Anyone can dispute by posting a matching bond; a first dispute triggers a fresh proposal, and a second sends the question to a vote of UMA token holders, a discussion period of 24 to 48 hours followed by a vote of about 48 hours. Polymarket's help centre says that once UMA finalises an outcome it cannot be altered or reversed.
Two details changed how that process looks in practice. Since 2025, proposals on Polymarket can come only from whitelisted addresses; UMA reported that in the first month of enforcement incorrect proposals fell 59% and disputes 68%. And in the markets Vultax measured, 58,318 carried custom challenge windows of 10 to 60 minutes rather than the two hours the documentation describes, most of them crypto, sports and esports markets.
## What was measured
Vultax paged through Polymarket's public list of closed events for the tags politics, sports, esports, economy, crypto, culture, geopolitics, tech and finance, kept each market whose own scheduled end date fell between 15 August and 10 September 2026, and dropped the recurring crypto up-or-down series. For each market it read the scheduled end, the time the market closed, the history of its resolution states and whether it was marked as automatically resolved. A market counts as disputed if its history includes a dispute. Settlement time is the closing time minus the scheduled end.
## How long each kind of market takes
Short, mechanical questions settle fastest: crypto price markets within minutes of their end. Politics and geopolitics take longest and are disputed most, because deciding whether something happened can itself be contested.
### How long each kind of market takes
Polymarket markets with a scheduled end between 15 August and 10 September 2026, grouped by first matching tag in the order sports, esports, politics, crypto, finance, economy, culture, geopolitics, tech. Median and 90th percentile cover markets that closed after their scheduled end.
| Category | Markets | Closed before scheduled end | Median hours after end | 90th percentile | Disputed | Share disputed |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Sports | 38,776 | 17.7% | 4.0 | 7.5 | 51 | 0.13% |
| Esports | 36,308 | 83.9% | 0.9 | 7.0 | 14 | 0.04% |
| Crypto, excluding up-or-down | 25,693 | 1.9% | 0.2 | 0.2 | 1 | 0.004% |
| Finance | 4,631 | 27.9% | 0.4 | 2.0 | 2 | 0.04% |
| Politics | 3,572 | 23.8% | 8.6 | 105.3 | 13 | 0.36% |
| Tech | 1,289 | 88.3% | 6.1 | 18.6 | 1 | 0.08% |
| Geopolitics | 172 | 21.5% | 73.7 | 206.6 | 6 | 3.49% |
| Economy | 135 | 19.3% | 10.0 | 27.3 | 1 | 0.74% |
[CSV](https://vultax.com/research/how-long-polymarket-takes-to-settle-markets/data.csv?dataset=by-category-table) · [JSON](https://vultax.com/research/how-long-polymarket-takes-to-settle-markets/data.json?dataset=by-category-table)
### Median hours from scheduled end to settlement
Markets that closed after their scheduled end, 15 August to 10 September 2026
| Category | Median hours |
| --- | --- |
| Crypto | 0.2 |
| Finance | 0.44 |
| Esports | 0.92 |
| Sports | 4.03 |
| Tech | 6.11 |
| Politics | 8.59 |
| Economy | 10.02 |
| Geopolitics | 73.73 |
[CSV](https://vultax.com/research/how-long-polymarket-takes-to-settle-markets/data.csv?dataset=by-category-chart) · [JSON](https://vultax.com/research/how-long-polymarket-takes-to-settle-markets/data.json?dataset=by-category-chart)
## Bigger markets are disputed more, not settled slower
Disputes rise with money at stake, which makes sense: a dispute costs a bond, and it is worth posting only when the outcome is worth arguing about. Settlement did not slow down with size.
### Bigger markets are disputed more, not settled slower
Same markets as above, by lifetime volume. Median hours cover markets that closed after their scheduled end.
| Markets that traded | Markets | Disputed | Share disputed | Median hours after end |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Any amount | 110,576 | 89 | 0.08% | 2.2 |
| $10,000 or more | 7,783 | 17 | 0.22% | 2.4 |
| $100,000 or more | 2,196 | 11 | 0.50% | 1.8 |
| $1 million or more | 300 | 2 | 0.67% | 0.7 |
[CSV](https://vultax.com/research/how-long-polymarket-takes-to-settle-markets/data.csv?dataset=by-size-table) · [JSON](https://vultax.com/research/how-long-polymarket-takes-to-settle-markets/data.json?dataset=by-size-table)
## What gets disputed
The largest disputed markets in the window share a feature: a question whose wording had to be matched to a real event after the fact.
- Iran - "US announces halt in Iran offensive operations by July 31?", $4.0 million traded, disputed twice.
- Player moves - "Will Maxx Crosby play for Indianapolis Colts next?", $1.15 million, disputed twice, and the matching Rams market, $406,000, three times.
- Presidential language - "Will Donald Trump publicly insult someone on August 23, 2026?", $826,000, disputed twice and closed five days after its scheduled end.
- Military incidents - "NATO downs another Russian drone by August 31?", $486,000, disputed twice.
- Esports - a League of Legends Challengers game-winner market, $329,000, disputed three times.
## Context from elsewhere
The disputes that made headlines were larger and older. In March 2025 a $7 million market on a Ukraine–U.S. minerals deal [resolved Yes before any agreement was confirmed](https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2025/03/27/polymarket-uma-communities-lock-horns-after-usd7m-ukraine-bet-resolves), and Polymarket declined refunds. In July 2025 UMA [resolved a $237 million market No](https://decrypt.co/329210/polymarket-rules-no-237m-bet-zelenskyys) on whether Volodymyr Zelenskyy had worn a suit, despite many media reports describing his outfit as one. The whitelisting of proposers followed that period.
Kalshi works differently: as a CFTC-regulated exchange, its own markets team determines outcomes under each contract's stated rules and sources, without a token-holder vote. That difference is one reason the same question can [settle on different terms on the two venues](https://vultax.com/research/kalshi-polymarket-arbitrage-gaps-after-fees).
## What it means
Three practical points follow from the numbers.
- Money comes back fast on most markets - nine in ten markets that ran to their scheduled end had settled within six hours of it.
- Long waits cluster in politics and geopolitics - one politics market in ten took more than four days after its scheduled end, and geopolitics took a median of three.
- Read the rules before a big position - disputes are rare, but they concentrate where wording meets events, and a clarification can change how a market is judged.
## Method and limits
Markets were found through nine topic tags, so markets in events carrying none of them are missing, and a market carrying several tags is counted once under the first in the listed order. The scheduled end is the date set in the market's listing, and the closing time is when Polymarket's data marks the market closed; payouts can be claimed around that time, but Vultax did not test individual claims. A dispute is counted from the market's resolution-state history, which does not show who disputed or why. Bond sizes and challenge windows are as described in Polymarket's and UMA's documentation, with the custom windows read from market data. Nothing here is a recommendation to trade. Challenge a figure at research@vultax.com; material changes are logged in the [changelog](https://vultax.com/changelog).
## Questions
### How long does Polymarket take to resolve a market?
Usually hours. Of markets that ended between 15 August and 10 September 2026 and ran to their scheduled end, half closed within 2.2 hours and 90% within six; 37% closed early because the result was already known.
### How often are Polymarket markets disputed?
Rarely: 89 of 110,576 markets in that window, 0.08%. Markets that traded $100,000 or more were disputed 0.5% of the time, and geopolitics markets 3.5%.
### What happens when a Polymarket resolution is disputed?
A disputer posts a bond matching the proposer's. A first dispute leads to a new proposal; a second sends the question to a vote of UMA token holders, which takes a few days, and the outcome is final once UMA settles it.
## Sources and methodology
- [Polymarket Gamma API — closed events](https://gamma-api.polymarket.com/events/keyset?closed=true&tag_slug=politics) — Closed markets with scheduled end, closing time and resolution states, read 13 September 2026
- [Polymarket — resolution](https://docs.polymarket.com/concepts/resolution) — Proposer bond, escalation to UMA; read 2026-09-12
- [Polymarket Help Center — how are markets disputed](https://help.polymarket.com/en/articles/13364551-how-are-markets-disputed) — Two-hour challenge period, discussion and vote timing, finality
- [UMA — how UMA's oracle works](https://docs.uma.xyz/protocol-overview/how-does-umas-oracle-work) — Commit and reveal voting periods
- [UMA — Managed proposers update (Nov 2025)](https://blog.uma.xyz/articles/managed-proposers-update) — Whitelisted proposers; incorrect proposals down 59%, disputes down 68% in the first month
- [CoinDesk — Polymarket and UMA communities lock horns after $7M Ukraine bet resolves (27 Mar 2025)](https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2025/03/27/polymarket-uma-communities-lock-horns-after-usd7m-ukraine-bet-resolves) — Disputed minerals-deal market
- [Decrypt — Polymarket rules No on $237M bet over Zelenskyy's suit (9 Jul 2025)](https://decrypt.co/329210/polymarket-rules-no-237m-bet-zelenskyys) — UMA ruling on the suit market
- [Kalshi Help Center — market rules](https://help.kalshi.com/markets/markets-101/market-rules) — Outcomes determined by Kalshi's markets team
- [Vultax: Kalshi–Polymarket arbitrage after fees](https://vultax.com/research/kalshi-polymarket-arbitrage-gaps-after-fees) — Where the two venues' rules differ