On one venue, sports, crypto, politics and weather use four entirely different resolution mechanisms — and markets inside one category can differ too. "My last market resolved this way so this one probably will" is one of the more expensive assumptions available here. I have paid for it.
| Category | Decided by | Main risk |
|---|---|---|
| Crypto price | a price oracle reading by rule | which price, which timestamp — often unintuitive |
| Sports | official results plus human submission | postponement, abandonment, extra time, later reversals |
| Politics / events | human submission plus dispute | wording: what counts as "officially announced" |
| Weather | a named station's official reading | which station, which period, do revisions count |
Their failure modes are unrelated, so experience in one transfers almost not at all. That is the entire reason "read it per category" is a rule rather than advice.
The most objective-looking category is the easiest to misjudge, because "did BTC rise over this period" contains three words with multiple legitimate readings:
| Word | Could mean |
|---|---|
| "price" | one exchange's trades? a median of several? an oracle aggregate? |
| "over this period" | which second? the close? or an average of the final stretch? |
| "rise" | against the open? against the previous close? strictly greater, or greater-or-equal? |
Mine used exchange spot close vs open; the market used the oracle's final-60-second time-weighted average vs open. Both are defensible.
Judging all 2,051 windows under both: 207 disagreed — a whole-sample unconditional mislabel rate of 10.1% — and the disagreement had a direction (125:82 my way).
The consequence is not "slightly less profit", it is the research conclusion being void. Full account in the broken ruler.
A rule of thumbthe shorter the tenor, the worse this gets. The final 60 seconds is 20% of a five-minute window and 0.4% of a four-hour one — audited across four tenors, the mislabel rate falls from 10.1% to essentially zero, tracking that ratio exactly.
A normal match resolves without argument. What is worth reading is the abnormal:
| Case | Confirm |
|---|---|
| Postponed | cancelled and refunded? or held open until it is replayed? |
| Abandoned mid-match | settled on the score at abandonment, or voided? |
| Extra time / penalties | included in the final result or not |
| Reversed after the fact | which moment's official result governs |
| An event "happening" | announced? in force? completed? |
A position of mine hit a postponed fixture. The market was not cancelled — it stayed open awaiting the replay. Meanwhile the bid side collapsed to 0.01, so a hundred-odd shares could be neither sold nor settled. The capital was simply locked until the fixture was played.
The lesson is not "avoid postponable fixtures". It is: know how long your money can be trapped in the worst case before you bet. "Postponed means refunded" is a natural assumption that frequently does not hold.
| Looks inferable | Actually |
|---|---|
| "one venue, so one rulebook" | no — it varies by category and sometimes by market |
| "one category, so the same rule" | not necessarily; the source or timestamp may differ |
| "the displayed price is the settling price" | no. The display is a market price; settlement comes from elsewhere |
| "it worked this way last time" | terms get revised, and you are not notified |
| # | Question |
|---|---|
| 1 | Which specific source decides? (not "official" — which official) |
| 2 | Which timestamp? An instant, or an average over a stretch? |
| 3 | How do edge cases resolve? (exact ties, postponement, cancellation, revisions) |
| 4 | Can I query that source myself? If not, you cannot verify your own outcome |
| 5 | Worst case, how long is my capital locked? |
Number 4 gets skipped most often and decides something important: whether you can independently tell that a settlement was correct. If you cannot reach the source, you can only accept the result — you would not even have grounds to dispute it.
Only one thing is uniform on this venue: the winner is $1 and the loser is $0. Who rules, and on what, varies by category and sometimes by market. Two minutes on the terms is the highest-return two minutes available here.