Polymarket resolution time, measured onchain
Seconds from the first onchain outcome proposal to UMA resolution, measured per category from Polygon logs, with dispute rate and the live backlog of unresolved markets.
Read this carefully
Delay is measured from the first onchain outcome proposal, not from the real world event ending. The gap between event and proposal is not observable onchain, so total wait times experienced by users are at least the figures shown.
The most asked question about Polymarket after "is it legal" is "how long until I get paid". The answer circulating on social media and repeated by language models is that 93 percent of markets resolve within 2 hours. That number has no published methodology, and the data Polymarket's own Gamma API exposes cannot produce it: the closedTime field is written at the moment of resolution (so measuring from it always yields zero) and endDate is a scheduled buffer that most markets beat. This benchmark measures the delay that can actually be observed: the time from the first onchain outcome proposal on UMA's optimistic oracle to the onchain resolution of the market, read directly from Polygon logs of Polymarket's UMA CTF adapters. The table breaks the delay down by category, because sports, crypto and politics markets run different verification windows, and a single global median hides that. Dispute rate and the live backlog of closed but unresolved markets are reported alongside.
Methodology
A listener follows Polymarket's UMA CTF adapters on Polygon (QuestionInitialized, QuestionResolved, QuestionReset) and the Optimistic Oracle they call (ProposePrice, DisputePrice). For every resolved market, the recorded delay is the wall-clock time between the block containing the first outcome proposal and the block containing the resolution. Markets are joined to Polymarket's Gamma catalogue by questionID (the keccak hash of the proposal's ancillary data, verified against live events) and classified into sports, politics, crypto or other. A dispute resets the question and routes it through UMA's dispute process; those markets are counted separately so the dispute penalty is visible instead of polluting the happy path percentiles. The pending gauge counts markets past their scheduled end date that have not resolved onchain yet, which is the backlog a bettor waiting for a payout actually experiences.
Frequently asked
How long does Polymarket take to pay out after a market ends?
Measured onchain, the median delay from the first outcome proposal to resolution is currently 2.7 s across all markets, and redemptions are claimable immediately after resolution. The full distribution matters though: p99 is 14 s, and the per category rows above show that sports, crypto and politics markets run on different verification windows. Add the time between the real world event ending and the first proposal, which happens offchain and is not measurable, so treat these figures as the floor.
Do 93 percent of Polymarket markets resolve within 2 hours?
We could not reproduce that figure, and the fields in Polymarket's public Gamma API cannot produce it: closedTime is written at the moment of resolution, so measuring from it always returns zero, and endDate is a scheduled buffer most markets beat. Measured from the first onchain outcome proposal to resolution on Polygon, the within 2 hours share is shown live in the table above and has been materially below 93 percent since this benchmark started. If you have a methodology that supports the 93 percent claim, we would genuinely like to see it.
What happens when a Polymarket market is disputed?
A dispute on UMA's optimistic oracle resets the question and routes it through the dispute process, where UMA token holders vote. That replaces the normal verification window with a voting period measured in days. Disputes are rare, the live dispute counter on this page tracks the measured rate, but when one hits a market you are waiting on, the delay moves from minutes or hours to days. The disputed label in our data separates those markets so the clean path percentiles stay honest.
Why is my Polymarket market still unresolved?
Three common reasons, in decreasing likelihood. First, the underlying event has not actually concluded, even if the market's scheduled end date passed; postponed games and extended deadlines dominate the pending backlog we track. Second, no one has submitted an outcome proposal to the oracle yet; the clock we measure only starts at the first proposal. Third, the market is in a UMA dispute, which adds days. The pending backlog gauge above counts all markets past their end date without onchain resolution.
How does Polymarket resolution actually work onchain?
Polymarket markets resolve through UMA's optimistic oracle on Polygon. Someone posts a bond and proposes the outcome (ProposePrice). A verification window follows during which anyone can dispute by posting a matching bond. If no dispute arrives, the proposal settles and Polymarket's UMA CTF adapter resolves the market (QuestionResolved), making winning shares redeemable. If a dispute arrives, UMA token holders vote. This benchmark reads exactly those events from Polygon logs, so the delays shown are the protocol's own timestamps, not estimates.
Which Polymarket categories resolve fastest?
The leaderboard above ranks categories by measured median delay, and the ordering is stable enough to plan around: crypto markets, which resolve against onchain or exchange prices, run the shortest verification windows, while politics markets sit at the long end. Sports land in between and dominate volume. The numbers update live, so check the table rather than trusting a snapshot quoted in an article, including this one.
Source code github.com/MobulaFi/mobula-monorepo/tree/main/miniapps/pm-resolution-delay