Polymarket Mention Markets: Introduction

Mention Markets

Why You Should Have a Look at Them

Mention markets on presidential candidate speeches are currently among the most popular markets on Polymarket, reaching volumes north of $1mln bet for this week alone. These markets focus on whether certain words will be mentioned during a presidential debate, with at least one new market introduced each week.

The way they work is simple: you have to guess if a specific word will be said by a candidate during particular events.

They are interesting because they have a very short turnaround and multiple choices, offering the opportunity to quickly compound winnings. However, they also come with a high level of unpredictability, as the outcome depends on both the words Polymarket chooses to include in the market and the topics the candidate will address during the event.

Trump Mention Market Analysis

Despite the level of unpredictability, that doesn't mean we can't run an analysis to make smarter decisions.

I have tried to do a little analysis of the Trump mention markets. To date, we've had about 18 mention markets for Trump on Polymarket.

I have broken them down by type, as I believe the topics and wording may change, especially between rallies and interviews.

Most of the markets have been about speeches and interviews; however, we currently have two upcoming rally markets, so we should gather more data on that soon.

The words included in the mention markets vary. To date, more than 119 words have been considered, with some, such as "Tampon," "Crypto," and "Fake News," featured in more than 10 markets.

It's worth noting that even though the final word selection is made by the Polymarket team, they are highly receptive to user input on their Discord.

I have taken the most frequently used words and checked how often they were mentioned. As you can see, terms like "Border Czar" or "Marxist" were always used by Trump in his speeches, while "Crypto" or "Bitcoin" were never mentioned. However, to be precise, when Trump spoke at a crypto conference, he did mention Bitcoin and Crypto. However, in that market, the Polymarket team only included a "Bitcoin 5+" option instead of just "Bitcoin."

I have also broken down the data by type of event to identify interesting trends. For example, while he used "Tampon" at every rally we considered, he never used it during a debate event.

Further Analysis

This is a preliminary analysis, and I will try to keep it updated with the upcoming mention markets if there is interest in the topic. I may also consider finding the transcript of each event to conduct a more thorough and flexible analysis.

In any case, below (behind paywall) you can find the Excel file with the detailed data for every word and every market to data, if you're interested.