# hopium.games

> hopium.games is an independent whale tracker for the Polymarket and Limitless prediction markets. It shows every big bet live with the wallet's real track record, tests whether each record is skill or luck, and measures what happens when you copy whales. Its data is free to cite with attribution (CC BY 4.0).

Key findings (weekly run 1791223421, computed 2026-10-05 18:03 UTC; updated every Monday):
- The 9,903 Polymarket whales tracked since Aug 20, 2026 are at −$5.84M combined, and 47.7% of them are in profit.
- Copying the top 20% of Polymarket whales (picked on earlier weeks), entries and exits, at prices a follower could actually get, returned −7.0% over 2,053 positions. The whales themselves made −4.5%.
- Of 1,343 Polymarket whales with enough bets to test, 3.2% beat the odds their prices implied. Luck alone would give 2.5%.
- Across 82,695 Polymarket positions held to the end, whales paid 3.4¢ more per $1 share than their bets turned out to be worth.
- Polymarket whales won 55.7% of their positions and are at −$5.84M combined. In crypto markets they won 76.3% of bets and still returned −2.1%.
- The 481 Limitless whales tracked since Sep 5, 2026 are at −$351K combined, and 26.4% of them are in profit.
- Copying the top 20% of Limitless whales (picked on earlier weeks), entries and exits, at prices a follower could actually get, returned −28.5% over 538 positions. The whales themselves made −9.2%.
- Of 149 Limitless whales with enough bets to test, 4.0% beat the odds their prices implied. Luck alone would give 2.5%.
- Across 4,275 Limitless positions held to the end, whales paid 2.8¢ more per $1 share than their bets turned out to be worth.

Definitions: a "whale" is any wallet trading $1,000+ on Polymarket or $50+ on Limitless. Profit is marked against how each market actually resolved. "Beat the odds" means a wallet won more often than its prices implied (calibrated z-score above 1.96); about 1 wallet in 40 does that by luck alone.

## Research (citable)
- [Does copying whales work?](https://hopium.games/copy-trading): the copy-trading test. Top whales picked on earlier weeks, copied entries and exits at prices a follower could get, scored against the whales on the same trades.
- [Methodology](https://hopium.games/methodology): how bets are recorded, how profit, win-rate ranges and the luck-vs-skill verdict are computed, wash-trade filtering, update schedule and limits.
- [FAQ](https://hopium.games/faq): short answers with live numbers.

## Data pages (Polymarket; add ?v=lmt for Limitless)
- [Live whale bets](https://hopium.games/): every big bet within about 5 minutes, each with the wallet's settled record and verdict.
- [The Victors: top traders](https://hopium.games/leaderboard): most profitable whales, with sample size, win-rate range and luck-vs-skill verdict.
- [The Fallen](https://hopium.games/graveyard): whales who were up big, then gave back at least half.
- [The price of hope (Hopium Index)](https://hopium.games/hopium-index): price paid vs how often bets won, by 5-cent price bucket.
- [Wallet lookup](https://hopium.games/wallet): any wallet's record at https://hopium.games/wallet/0x<address>.

## About
- [About hopium.games](https://hopium.games/about): independent, no referral links or paid placements, not financial advice. Data licence: CC BY 4.0, credit "Source: hopium.games" with a link.