The finding
Prediction markets are supposed to be fast. The received wisdom is that they reprice within minutes of a headline, which would mean the number on your screen already contains the news. We timed 90,633 Polymarket reactions of two cents or more, dated by when the news broke, across eight weeks from April 29 to June 26, 2026. The median took 80.1 minutes.
No category escapes it. Geopolitics, the subject the speed narrative is built on, took 79.1 minutes. Politics, the fastest major category, still took 75.1. Every major category’s median landed between 75.1 and 81.9 minutes, and once the intervals allow for reactions clustering inside 2,070 markets, five of the six cover the pooled 80.1. Not one is fast.
Prediction markets grind toward a new price. They do not snap to it.
The Minutes Myth · Vera Research
