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Updated September 25, 2026 · facts checked against the dated sources listed below
“Other” is the catch-all outcome in some multi-outcome Polymarket markets: it wins if the result is not one of the named outcomes, and some rules also send edge cases to it, such as no result by a deadline. What it covers can shrink as Polymarket adds names, and Polymarket's own documentation advises against trading it directly in markets built that way.
A market such as “Who will win?” is a group of separate Yes/No markets, one for each outcome, in which only one can resolve Yes. Polymarket calls this negative risk: because only one outcome can win, a No share on one outcome can be converted into a Yes share on every other outcome.
Standard negative risk needs every possible outcome to be known when the market is created. For contests where new names can appear, Polymarket uses what it calls augmented negative risk, with three kinds of outcome: named outcomes, placeholder slots that can be named later, and an explicit “Other”.
See also: How multi-outcome markets work · Negative risk
According to Polymarket's documentation, “Other” catches any outcome not explicitly named, and if the correct outcome at resolution is not named, the market resolves to “Other”. When a new contender emerges, Polymarket names a placeholder through an on-chain bulletin board, and the definition of “Other” narrows. The Polymarket interface does not show unnamed placeholders.
That is why the same documentation tells traders to trade only named outcomes and to avoid trading “Other” directly: a share bought when “Other” covered everyone except five names can end up covering fewer possibilities once a sixth name is added.
Many rules also use “Other” as the fallback for edge cases. The 2026 Ballon d'Or market resolves to “Other” if no winner is declared by December 31, 2026, and the 2026 World Cup winner market would have gone to “Other” had the tournament been canceled or left unfinished by October 13, 2026. Not every market works this way: the 2025 papal conclave market had a separate “No new Pope in 2025” outcome instead.
“Other” can also be narrow. Polymarket's 2024 presidential winner market had no single “Other”; it had “Other Democratic Politician” and “Other Republican Politician” outcomes, limited to people who had held state or federal elected office. The Republican one traded about $242 million and resolved No, according to Polymarket's data.
TIME's 2025 Person of the Year shows how much the wording matters. TIME named the “Architects of AI” on December 11, 2025. Polymarket ruled that this did not count for its “Artificial Intelligence” outcome, because AI itself was not named, and the market's catch-all outcome, labeled “Architects of AI / Other”, resolved Yes. More than $55 million had been traded across the market.
In September 2024, the “Other” outcome of Polymarket's next French prime minister market, which covered anyone outside the named candidates and the three main coalitions, resolved Yes when President Emmanuel Macron appointed Michel Barnier of Les Républicains. It was no long shot: Polymarket's price history shows it at about 54 cents in late August 2024 and about 90 cents by September 1.
Thin trading. A study of Polymarket markets that resolved between April 2024 and April 2025 found that more than 90% of a market's liquidity sits in its top four outcomes. Some explicit “Other” outcomes barely trade at all: the “Any Other Team” outcome of the 2026 World Cup winner market shows no volume in Polymarket's data.
Stale or placeholder prices. Polymarket displays the midpoint between the best bid and ask, but when the spread is wider than 10 cents it shows the last traded price, which may be old. Its API also returns a 50-cent placeholder as the last trade price of a token that has never traded, so third-party sites can show odd numbers for an untraded “Other”.
Prices that do not add up. The named outcomes on screen can add up to well under 100%: Polymarket's newsletter noted in August 2025 that the top Nobel Peace Prize candidates added up to only about 60% because of the wildcard potential. Cheap outcomes also carry the highest fees relative to the stake.
Long-shot pricing. The evidence on long shots is mixed: our sample of resolved Polymarket markets found outcomes priced under 10% a week before the close came in more often than priced, while a September 2026 study of 588 million Polymarket trades found that buys below 10 cents lost 19.3 cents per dollar, a result that reversed when related contracts were grouped by event. Neither looked at “Other” specifically.
See also: Is there a favorite-longshot bias on Polymarket? · Overround calculator
Before trading or quoting an “Other” price, read the rules for what it includes and what happens if there is no result, check whether names are still being added, and look at the order book rather than the headline number. An outcome can be cheap because it is unlikely or because nobody is trading it. This is educational information, not financial advice.
See also: How to read a Polymarket order book · Multi-outcome market
It is the catch-all outcome in a multi-outcome market. It resolves Yes if the winner is not one of the named outcomes, or in any case the rules assign to it, such as no result by a deadline.
In markets that add names over time, what “Other” covers narrows each time a placeholder is named, so a share can end up covering fewer outcomes than when it was bought. Polymarket's documentation advises trading named outcomes only.
No. A 50-50 resolution is a separate, rare result used when neither Yes nor No applies, and it pays $0.50 per share. “Other” is an outcome that pays $1 per share if it wins.
Yes. It won TIME's 2025 Person of the Year market after TIME named the “Architects of AI”, and the 2024 next French prime minister market when Michel Barnier was appointed.
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