polymarket-sports-mm

Sports market making bot for Polymarket liquidity rewards. Optimized for the quadratic scoring function.

Polymarket pays $5M+/month to market makers who post resting limit orders on sports markets. This bot quotes both sides of the book — pre-game and live — to capture those rewards.

The math

Every minute, Polymarket samples your resting orders and scores them:

S(v, s) = ((v - s) / v)²

v = max qualifying spread (set per market, typically 3-5 cents)
s = your order's distance from midpoint

This is quadratic. Being 2x tighter = 4x the score:

Distance from mid    Score
0 cents (at mid)     1.000
1 cent               0.444
2 cents              0.111
3 cents (at max)     0.000

Two-sided quoting (bid + ask) scores 3x vs single-sided. The bot always quotes both sides.

Install

git clone https://github.com/spfunctions/polymarket-sports-mm.git
cd polymarket-sports-mm
pip install -e .

Usage

Discover markets

No credentials needed. Scans Polymarket for active sports events:

$ sfmm discover

                     Sports Events (376 found)
┌────────────┬──────────────────────────────────┬─────┬──────────┐
│ Sport      │ Event                            │ Mid │ Volume   │
├────────────┼──────────────────────────────────┼─────┼──────────┤
│ soccer     │ 2026 FIFA World Cup Winner       │0.16 │ $467,000 │
│ basketball │ 2026 NBA Champion                │0.36 │  $33,200 │
│ hockey     │ 2026 NHL Stanley Cup Champion    │0.12 │   $2,745 │
│ soccer     │ UEFA Champions League Winner     │0.10 │   $5,557 │
│ basketball │ NBA MVP                          │0.27 │   $4,700 │
│ ...        │                                  │     │          │
└────────────┴──────────────────────────────────┴─────┴──────────┘

Dry run

No credentials needed. Fetches real orderbooks, computes real quotes, logs what it would place:

$ sfmm run --dry-run

DRY RUN — no orders will be placed

PRE 2026 FIFA World Cup Winner (58 markets)
PRE 2026 NBA Champion (20 markets)

[DRY] place BUY 100 @ 0.15 on Spain token
[DRY] place SELL 100 @ 0.17 on Spain token
  Will Spain win the 2026 FIFA W: bid 0.15x100 ask 0.17x100 (mid=0.157)

[DRY] place BUY 100 @ 0.36 on OKC Thunder token
[DRY] place SELL 100 @ 0.39 on OKC Thunder token
  Will the Oklahoma City Thunder: bid 0.36x100 ask 0.39x100 (mid=0.375)

Real quoting

Requires Polymarket CLOB credentials (register here):

export POLYMARKET_PRIVATE_KEY=0x...
export POLYMARKET_API_KEY=...
export POLYMARKET_API_SECRET=...
export POLYMARKET_API_PASSPHRASE=...

# Pre-game only
sfmm run --mode pre

# Pre-game + live (auto-transitions at kickoff)
sfmm run

# Specific market
sfmm run --market <condition_id>

How the bot quotes

The core insight: prices for score, sizes for view.

Bid price = midpoint - 1 tick     (maximizes quadratic score)
Ask price = midpoint + 1 tick     (symmetric = balanced Q_min)

Bid size  = base × (1 + skew)    (skew > 0 if bullish)
Ask size  = base × (1 - skew)    (skew blends view + inventory mean-reversion)

Moving prices away from midpoint to express a view kills your score (quadratic penalty). Instead, keep prices tight and adjust the size ratio.

Architecture

sfmm discover
  │
  │  Polymarket Gamma API
  │  → find sports events, extract token IDs
  ▼
sfmm run
  │
  ├─ Pre-game engine (poll every 5s)
  │   │
  │   ├─ Fetch orderbook (CLOB API)
  │   ├─ Compute adjusted midpoint
  │   ├─ Fair value = midpoint (Level 0) or external odds blend (Level 1)
  │   ├─ Quote engine → optimal bid/ask price & size
  │   └─ Cancel-and-replace via py-clob-client
  │
  ├─ Live engine (poll every 1s)
  │   │
  │   ├─ Same as pre-game but faster
  │   ├─ Circuit breaker: midpoint jump > threshold → pull all quotes
  │   ├─ Cooldown (10s) → re-read mid → requote
  │   └─ Symmetric only (no view skew during live — survival mode)
  │
  └─ Risk manager
      ├─ Position limit per market (default 1000 contracts)
      ├─ Total exposure cap ($5,000)
      ├─ Daily loss limit ($500) → halt
      └─ Inventory mean-reversion via size skew

Reward pools (April 2026)

League	Total/game	Pre	Live
Champions League QFs	$24,000	$6,750	$17,250
English Premier League	$10,000	$2,800	$7,200
NBA	$7,700	$2,150	$5,550
CS2 A-tier	$5,500	$1,550	$3,950
IPL Cricket	$4,500	$1,250	$3,250
La Liga / Serie A	$3,300	$900	$2,400
MLB	$1,650	$465	$1,185
NHL	$1,500	$400	$1,100

Full list: Polymarket docs

Configuration

Copy config.example.toml:

[quoting]
spread_ticks = 1                # ticks from midpoint
min_size_multiplier = 2.0       # quote min_incentive_size * this
max_position_per_market = 1000
max_total_exposure_usd = 5000

[risk]
daily_loss_limit_usd = 500
circuit_cooldown_sec = 10
inventory_half_life = 500

[feeds]
poll_interval_pre = 5.0
poll_interval_live = 1.0

Environment variables (.env.example):

POLYMARKET_PRIVATE_KEY=0x...
POLYMARKET_API_KEY=
POLYMARKET_API_SECRET=
POLYMARKET_API_PASSPHRASE=
SF_API_KEY=              # optional — SimpleFunctions intent reporting
ODDS_API_KEY=            # optional — external odds for fair value

Tests

pip install -e ".[dev]"
pytest tests/ -v -p no:asyncio

47 tests covering scoring (verified against Polymarket docs worked example), quote engine, and risk logic.

Roadmap

• Core scoring (S(v,s), Q_min, adjusted midpoint)
• Quote engine (prices for score, sizes for view)
• Pre-game engine
• Live engine with circuit breaker
• Market discovery (376 events found)
• Dry-run mode
• External odds feed (Pinnacle/Betfair fair value anchor)
• Sport-specific probability models (Dixon-Coles for soccer)
• Rich terminal dashboard
• Backtest against historical orderbook data
• WebSocket feeds (replace polling)

License

MIT

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Built with SimpleFunctions — prediction market intelligence for AI agents.