How to set a stop-loss on Polymarket
Polymarket has no built-in stop-loss. Desk adds one: a price level that auto-closes your position the moment the market moves against you — plus a take-profit for the other direction — armed in a single click on the ladder or the chart.
What a stop-loss does on a prediction market
A Polymarket price is a probability — a market trading at 40¢ means roughly a 40% chance the answer is "yes", and each share pays $1 if it resolves your way. When the price drifts against your position, your open profit falls just like any other trade. A stop-loss is a level you set in advance: if the price reaches it, Desk closes the position at market so a small loss doesn't become a large one while you're not watching.
Because Desk trades your own Polymarket wallet directly, the stop closes a real position on the exchange — it isn't a paper alert. The mirror image is a take-profit (Desk calls it a Target): a level in your favour that banks the win automatically.
Setting a stop in Desk
Stops live in the Exits tool, available on both the ladder and the chart:
- Stop — auto-closes if the price moves against you to the level you pick.
- Target — auto-closes when the price moves your way to the level (a take-profit).
- Trail — a stop that ratchets toward the market as the trade wins, locking in gains. See trailing stops.
- Open a position, then open the Exits tool.
- Click Stop (or Target) to arm it.
- Click the price on the ladder rung — or the level on the chart — where it should fire. Desk marks the level and watches it for you.
On the chart you draw the level by clicking the chart instead of a rung; everything else is identical.
Auto stop-loss on every entry
If you'd rather never place one by hand, turn on Auto stop-loss. Desk then arms a stop a fixed distance — a set number of ticks, or a percentage — away from every entry you make, automatically. Enter a position and the protective stop is already in place before you've touched the Exits tool.
It's the simplest way to guarantee you never hold an unprotected position: set the distance once, and every trade inherits it.
A worked example
Say you buy 100 shares of "Yes" at 60¢ — $60 at risk, and you'd like to cap the loss near $10.
- Arm Stop and click the 50¢ rung. If the price falls to 50¢, Desk sells your 100 shares at market — roughly a $10 loss instead of riding it toward zero.
- Arm Target and click 75¢. If the price rises there first, Desk banks about $15 of profit without you watching.
Whichever level the market reaches first fires; the position closes and the other level is cancelled. You've defined your risk and your reward before the market did anything.
Exits are watched by the app — the stop and target only fire while Desk is open and connected. Close Desk and its automations stop. Anything already resting on Polymarket stays live; a level Desk was watching for does not.
Stops on a fast, thin market
Short-dated markets can gap. When a price is collapsing there may be little resting liquidity to sell into at your exact level, so a market stop fills at the next available price below it — the stop bounds your risk, it doesn't guarantee the precise exit price. On liquid markets this is negligible; on a thin, fast one, size accordingly and don't rely on a stop to escape a runaway move for free.