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Polymarket midterm bets surpass 2024 volume, but wallet use is concentrated
By Aug. 10, at least $133 million was staked across House and Senate related contracts, and the top 1% of wallets controlled 68% of Polymarket Global congressional volume.
CryptoSlate reports that betting activity for the Nov. 3 midterm election has expanded sharply, with traders placing at least $133 million across House and Senate race markets by Aug. 10. That figure already exceeded the $92.4 million total recorded during all of 2024 for comparable congressional markets.
The market also broadened from 464 comparable congressional markets to 7,466 covering additional contract types such as primaries, vote shares, turnout, endorsements, candidate remarks, and winners. In Polymarket Global, the top 1% of wallets accounted for 68% of congressional volume, and 10 wallets alone produced 17% of it while trading contracts tied to 426 of the 470 seats on the ballot.
The analysis, conducted by the Anti-Corruption Data Collective using data current through Aug. 10, compared 2026 expansion versus 2024 and suggested total election-betting volume could land between $1.4 billion and $1.6 billion if prior late-stage acceleration repeats. It also found that breadth may be outpacing participation depth, including that 80% of Polymarket congressional markets have fewer than 100 participating wallets and only 10 have crossed 1,000 wallets.
CryptoSlate said the concentration creates a risk that displayed probabilities can look like mass public consensus even when a small pool of traders supplied the most important liquidity. It cited that many markets are thin, where a single well-funded order can shift contract pricing without any underlying change in election fundamentals.