The Polymarket whale who could not stop betting big lost over $2M

A Polymarket trader made more than $1.5 million in his first seven weeks. Six days later, he had lost nearly half a million dollars.

The account, ripley86alien, began trading in July. On August 23, he bet that AS Monaco would win a football match. Monaco won, and the position paid $973,432.

Four days later, he bet that a Real Madrid match would contain at least four goals. It did, generating another $501,784. By the evening of August 27, he was up roughly $1.55 million.

Unfortunately, all great stories come to an end. You either die as a profitable trader, or you live long enough to see yourself become the exit liquidity. And on August 29, the trades that had made ripley86alien look almost unstoppable began to unravel.

The trader had positions on five football matches that evening. Dortmund and Elversberg won, producing $115,761 in winnings. But Lyon, Hoffenheim, and Nottingham Forest all lost. Those three positions cost him $1,549,850.

As a result, approximately $1.43 million disappeared in a few hours.

That would have been enough to end most people’s trading career. But ripley86alien kept going.

Three days later, he switched to tennis and backed Andrey Rublev to defeat Daniel Mérida at the US Open. Mérida was a 21-year-old Spaniard who had never been ranked higher than 86th in the world. Rublev was the 23rd seed and a four-time US Open quarterfinalist.

Over roughly an hour, the trader placed 14 orders and bought 880,355 contracts on Rublev at an average price of about 61 cents. Each contract would have paid $1 if Rublev won. The total cost was $553,145.

Rublev lost in four sets. The entire position expired worthless.

That brings the account’s record to 15 bets since July: seven wins and eight losses. The winning positions generated $2,140,444, while the losing positions cost $2,619,065.

The profile page shows a net loss of $362,435, but that figure covers only the trading results. After deducting $116,239 in fees and $26,016 in rebates, the account is down approximately $452,658.

The trader’s problem was not necessarily an inability to pick winners. Winning seven of 15 bets is hardly extraordinary, but it is not catastrophic either. The damage came from the amount wagered on each position, and from the fact that his biggest losses were roughly as large as his biggest wins. Instead of risking $1 to make $2, or $1 to make $3, he was basically risking $1 to make $1, sometimes risking even more for a smaller return.

For example, his four largest wins averaged $505,173. His four largest losses averaged $525,748. At the size ripley86alien was trading, a few bad results can permanently impair the account, which is exactly what happened.

He now has $2,939,535 in the account and no active positions. Yesterday, Wednesday, September 2, he backed Marta Kostyuk in a tennis match, won $3,991, and stopped trading.

Interestingly, only after losing millions in a matter of days did the final position become not another huge wager but a relatively small trade.

Maybe he is cautious now. Maybe not. Either way, the account still holds nearly $3 million, giving him enough capital to attempt a comeback. After all, considering the huge risks traders are taking in prediction markets, the speed between a spectacular comeback and an even larger loss can be just one trade.