# Who decides how a prediction market resolves

Four different parties resolve these markets, each against a document named in the rules rather than in the title. Who decides, from what source, and by when.

*https://predictionmarkets.tools/guides/who-decides-the-outcome · background to Prediction Market Venues*

**Answer:** Four different parties, depending on the venue: the exchange itself, an automated price feed, a bonded proposal escalating to a token-holder vote, or the person who wrote the question. None of them read the market title. Each resolves against the source named in that market's own rules, on its own timetable, and the fallback when a question cannot be answered is usually your entry price rather than a dollar.

Four different things get called "resolution", and in every support conversation that starts with
"I was right, why have I not been paid", at least two of them have been mixed up. They are: who
declares the outcome, which document they read it from, how long the declaration takes to become
money, and what happens when the question has no clean answer at all. A venue can be fast on one
and slow on another, and the four answers vary more between venues than the fees do.

This is the one question in the sector that does not depend on where you live. The rest of a
venue's page changes by jurisdiction — who may open an account, which contracts are listed, what a
regulator has allowed. Resolution is the same mechanism for everyone holding the same contract.

## How it works

Between a market closing and money moving, four separate decisions happen, usually made by
different parties on different clocks:

1. **Somebody declares the outcome.** An exchange employee, a committee, a price feed, a bonded
   proposer, or the person who wrote the question.
2. **They read it from a named document.** Not the title of the market — a source agency, a
   statistical release, an official classification, an oracle report.
3. **The declaration becomes a payout on a timetable** that is written down in some places and not
   in others.
4. **If the question cannot be answered as written, somebody decides what a position is worth
   instead.** This is the part nobody advertises, and it is the part that pays you your cost
   basis rather than a dollar.

### Who declares the outcome

**The exchange, by its own determination.** This is how the CFTC-regulated venues work and it is
the shortest chain: the exchange reads the source, states the outcome, and its statement is the
outcome. Polymarket US does not merely resolve markets — its rulebook *defines* the Source Agency
as the Exchange itself, which then references the external sources designated in each contract's
terms, organised as primary, secondary and tertiary. Rule 10.4 lets the CEO, the Chief Compliance
Officer, the COO, the Head of Markets or their designate open a review at sole discretion before
settlement, determine the final outcome, and reverse a final outcome in the case of obvious error.
Rule 10.4(c) is one sentence long: the Company has full discretion in reviewing markets, and
determinations made by the Company are final. [The rulebook is
published](https://polymarketexchange.com/files/legal/latest/rulebook) and is dated on its cover;
the version behind this page is 14 September 2026.

[Kalshi](https://predictionmarkets.tools/tools/kalshi) and [ForecastEx](https://predictionmarkets.tools/tools/forecastex) work the same way with different
furniture. Kalshi's contract terms, as filed with the CFTC, say that before settlement Kalshi may
at its sole discretion initiate the Market Outcome Review Process under Rule 7.1 of its rulebook,
and that determinations of its Outcome Review Committee are final and not subject to review.
ForecastEx Rule 415 gives the same power to an Event Review Process, with a twist worth knowing:
where the review was opened because of a *potential error in the data retrieved from the Source
Agency*, a Change Control Oversight Board may determine the correct resolution by unanimous
consent, and anything else goes to the Event Review Committee, whose determinations are final.

What this buys you is speed and a named accountable entity operating under a filed rulebook. What
it costs you is that there is no appeal. "Who do I complain to" has an answer — the exchange's own
compliance function, and behind it the CFTC — but it is not an answer that re-opens your contract.

**An automated feed, with nobody reading anything.** [Limitless](https://predictionmarkets.tools/tools/limitless) resolves the
majority of its markets from Pyth Network at the deadline, and its short-cadence crypto up-or-down
markets from a Chainlink time-weighted average. The documentation is specific about the edge that
matters: the report at the exact resolution time is used first, and if it is unavailable, the first
Chainlink observation inside the market's stated tolerance window is used instead. Everything a
feed cannot settle — sports, politics — is resolved by the Limitless team.

A feed removes discretion and replaces it with plumbing risk. There is no committee to have an
opinion, and equally no committee to notice that the feed printed something absurd for one second.

**A bonded proposal with an escalation path.** [Polymarket](https://predictionmarkets.tools/tools/polymarket)'s international
platform resolves nothing itself. An outcome is proposed to the UMA optimistic oracle with a bond
behind it, and for two hours anyone may dispute that proposal by posting a challenge bond of the
same size — Polymarket's own documentation puts the usual figure at $750. A dispute opens a debate
period of 24 to 48 hours, after which UMA token holders vote, a process the documentation puts at
roughly 48 hours. The venue's statement of its own position is unambiguous: Polymarket is
non-custodial and cannot alter or reverse market resolutions, and once finalised by UMA, outcomes
are immutable.

This is the only process in this catalogue a third party can actually enter. It is also the only
one where the party that decides has no relationship with you, no support inbox, and no obligation
under a filed rulebook. Both halves of that are the same fact.

[Zeitgeist](https://predictionmarkets.tools/alternatives/zeitgeist) built the fullest version of this shape — jurors and
delegators locking the chain's own token, votes cast as sealed hashes and then revealed, plurality
winning, up to three appeals and then a vote of every token holder — and it is worth knowing as a
construction, because it is the design the rest of the category gets compared against. Its
Polkadot slot lease expired in August 2026, its published endpoints no longer answer, and none of
it is available to trade against today.

**The one time a token-holder vote was actually run to the end.** Everything above describes what
these mechanisms are designed to do. [Augur](https://predictionmarkets.tools/alternatives/augur) is the only case where the
hardest one ran to completion on a public chain: a disputed market on a rocket launch triggered a
fork in April 2026, the escalation game ran for two months, and holders then had until 3 August
to move their tokens into whichever of two universes they believed. Fifty-nine and a half percent
of the supply migrated, the deadline was enforced by the contract rather than by a person, and
what did not move is stranded where it was. Read it before deciding that a vote of token holders
is a milder outcome than an exchange saying no: the exchange has a support inbox, and a fork has a
countdown.

**The person who wrote the question.** On [Manifold](https://predictionmarkets.tools/tools/manifold) the creator of a market
resolves it, which the documentation states plainly and defends as trust placed in users.
Moderators overturn resolutions in exceptional circumstances, and only moderators and staff can
resolve a question to N/A. This is a real mechanism rather than an absence of one, and it scales
the way you would expect: excellent on a question whose author cares, poor on a question whose
author has lost interest.

## Which document the outcome is read from

Never the title of the market. Every venue here resolves against a named source and a written
payout condition, and the gap between the two is where most disputes live.

**Kalshi publishes this as data, which is the most checkable form of it in the sector.** Each
series in the public API carries a `settlement_sources` array — each entry a name and a URL — plus
a `contract_url` and a `contract_terms_url` pointing at the filed PDF. The inflation series
`KXCPIYOY` names the Bureau of Labor Statistics and its CPI page; the presidential party series
names the Office of the Presidency. You can read this before you take a position, from a script,
without an account: it is a field on [the public market data
API](https://api.elections.kalshi.com/trade-api/v2/series/KXCPIYOY), covered by the
[Kalshi API](https://predictionmarkets.tools/tools/kalshi-api) card.

Sources are frequently a *hierarchy* rather than one document. The motorsport head-to-head contract
Kalshi self-certified in March 2026 names nine source agencies in order: the governing body, then
the official website or app of the series, then ESPN, Sky Sports, Motorsport.com, Autosport, the
Associated Press, BBC Sport and Reuters. If the first one is silent, the second one decides.

Two more clauses in that document are worth reading twice. Revisions to the underlying made after
expiration will not be accounted for in determining the expiration value — so a corrected figure
published next week does not move a settled contract. And all instructions on how to access the
underlying are non-binding, provided for convenience only, and not part of the binding terms. The
link is not the rule. The rule is the rule.

**ForecastEx publishes a terms-and-conditions PDF per product code**, all of them in one
[regulatory directory](https://data.forecastex.com/regulatory/), and each one names the source
agency, the exact publication the number is read from, and the release time. The US unemployment
contract names the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U-3 rate in the monthly Employment Situation
release, and 7:30 AM CT as both the resolution time and the last trading time — and then says, as
Kalshi does, that its links are informational and the source agency may publish the data somewhere
else at any time. The [CPI contract](https://data.forecastex.com/regulatory/CPITermsandConditions.pdf)
carries the sentence that decides a whole class of arguments in one line: ForecastEx will only
consider the initial CPI value from the official release.

That is worth stating as a general rule, because it is one: **on these venues the first print
wins.** Revisions, benchmark rebasings and corrections to the same statistic are real events in the
economy and non-events for your contract.

**A source can be replaced mid-life, and each venue says so.** ForecastEx Rule 413(a) lets the
exchange designate a new source agency and underlying after the first day of trading where the
existing one becomes unreliable or unavailable, requiring the replacement to be objective and
verifiable and posting the change to its website. Polymarket US Rule 10.3 is the same power, and
its rulebook defines a "Modification" as a binding change to a contract's terms, specifications or
resolution criteria — expressly including the *interpretation* of resolution criteria — that
becomes part of the contract terms upon issuance. Polymarket's international platform does this
through what it calls an "Additional context" clarification, published on chain via a bulletin
board contract for UMA voters to consider, and it states the limit: a clarification cannot change
the fundamental intent of the question.

So the rules you read when you opened a position are not necessarily the rules that settle it.
They are, however, always published.

## What it costs

The cost here is not a fee. It is capital locked between the moment a market stops trading and the
moment the money is yours, and it is longer than most people expect and much longer when anything
goes wrong. A market that has stopped trading is not a market that has paid.

- **Polymarket, undisputed:** the challenge period is 2 hours, and the documentation gives
  resolution as roughly 2 hours after the proposal is made. Redemption is then a transaction you
  send yourself.
- **Polymarket, disputed:** 24 to 48 hours of debate plus about 48 hours of voting, which the
  documentation totals as 4 to 6 days.
- **Kalshi:** the settlement date is no later than the day after the expiration date — unless the
  market outcome is under review under Rule 7.1, in which case the terms state no outer bound.
- **ForecastEx:** settlement no later than the day following expiration, unless the outcome is
  under review under Rule 415, in which case settlement occurs at the settlement cycle immediately
  following the conclusion of the review.
- **ForecastEx, source delayed:** if the source agency delays its release, the exchange delays the
  resolution time until the data is published, and posts one notice when that happens and a second
  when the contract resolves. An agency that misses a print by a week locks your capital for a
  week.
- **Limitless, feed-resolved:** at the deadline. **Team-resolved:** typically 24 to 72 hours after
  the deadline, depending on the complexity of the event.
- **Polymarket US, under review:** Rule 10.4 says settlement occurs on the date the review
  concludes and reaches a determination. The rulebook sets no maximum length for that review.

Two of these deserve the emphasis. The first is that every regulated venue's "next day" promise
carries the same escape clause, and it is the clause that applies precisely on the contracts you
will care most about — the close ones, the ambiguous ones, the ones where somebody has complained.
The second is that a disputed Polymarket market is not a slow version of an undisputed one: it is a
different process, run by different people, on a multi-day clock.

## When the question has no clean answer

This is the section with no marketing page behind it on any venue, and it is where the difference
between a good trade and a returned deposit actually lives. The pattern across all four mechanisms
is the same: **when a question cannot be answered as written, the fallback is close to your entry
price rather than the dollar you were owed.**

- **Polymarket** has a fourth voting outcome, Unknown, described in its own documentation as rare
  and reserved for events where none of the other options are appropriate. The market resolves
  50/50 and each token redeems for $0.50. If you bought Yes at 12 cents and you were right, an
  Unknown outcome is a windfall; if you bought at 88 cents and you were right, it is a loss.
- **Polymarket US Rule 10.5** covers contracts about a named person who dies or is incapacitated
  before expiration such that the outcome can no longer occur or be objectively determined. Those
  contracts settle at last traded prices before the event — and if trading was materially affected,
  at last traded prices before the circumstances became known or could reasonably have been
  anticipated, with the exchange resolving conflicting evidence in favour of the earliest time. If
  last traded prices are not a fair settlement, it goes to a Rule 10.4 review, and determinations
  under the rule are final and not subject to review. Kalshi's filed terms carry a materially
  identical provision, with its Outcome Review Committee determining a fair settlement price where
  no last traded price represents one.
- **ForecastEx Rule 414** governs accelerated settlement where a circumstance prevents the event
  question being answered accurately. The exchange uses the most recent last prices where they are
  available; where they are not, or where it judges them an unfair allocation, the Event Review
  Committee makes a binding determination, and in no event shall the combined payout for a single
  Yes position and a single No position exceed $1.00. That last clause is the whole design in one
  sentence: the pot is not topped up.
- **Limitless** treats a market whose published criteria cannot be applied as misresolved and
  refunds the cost basis of the shares held on the side that should have won. Holders on the
  wrongly-paid side keep their payout, because payouts settle on chain and cannot be clawed back.
  Being right and being misresolved still costs you the trade, and the venue publishes that
  plainly rather than burying it.
- **Manifold** annuls to N/A, which returns trader mana and is restricted to moderators and staff
  rather than the creator.

Read these before you need them, because the design decision they share is invisible from the
market page: you are not insured against a badly written question, you are refunded out of it.

## What you can do about it

Two neighbouring questions have their own pages: what the position costs once you know it will
be paid is in [what a trade actually costs](https://predictionmarkets.tools/guides/what-a-trade-actually-costs), and why the
price you are reading may not be a probability at all is in
[where the liquidity comes from](https://predictionmarkets.tools/guides/where-liquidity-comes-from).

Everything above assumes the answer decides whether you are paid. Where it decides whether you
are *scored* instead, the same question has different stakes and a different failure mode — the
author of a question often resolves it themselves, which
[what a forecasting score measures](https://predictionmarkets.tools/guides/what-a-forecasting-score-measures) takes apart.

**Read three things before you take a position, in this order.** The market's own rules — the
payout condition, not the headline. The named source, and whether it is one document or a
hierarchy. And the settlement timetable, including what happens if the source publishes late. On
every venue in this catalogue, all three are published before you can trade.

**Here is where the named source actually lives.**

- **Kalshi** — the `settlement_sources` array on the series object in the public API, alongside
  `contract_url` and `contract_terms_url`, which point at the terms as filed. No account needed;
  see the [Kalshi API](https://predictionmarkets.tools/tools/kalshi-api) card for the endpoints. The same rules are printed on the
  market page.
- **ForecastEx** — one terms-and-conditions PDF per product code, all in
  [the regulatory directory](https://data.forecastex.com/regulatory/), alongside the rulebook. Find
  the product code first; the file is named after it.
- **Polymarket US** — the contract's terms and conditions, read against the rulebook's definitions
  of Source Agency, Expiration Value and Contract Outcome. The rulebook is on the exchange's own
  legal path and is dated on its cover page.
- **Polymarket** — the Rules section of the market page, which states the resolution source and
  carries the link into the UMA oracle portal where a proposal can be disputed. Any clarification
  is published on chain rather than edited into the page.
- **Limitless** — the market page, which the documentation names as the authority on which
  real-world results resolve Yes, which resolve No, and how ties, cancellations and unlisted
  outcomes are handled.
- **Manifold** — the question's description, and the profile of whoever wrote it. There is no
  external source to check, which is the honest summary of the mechanism.

**Ask these five questions when the rule does not obviously cover what happened.** They are
phrased so that a support desk can answer them, and each one maps to a clause above.

1. *Which named source governs this contract, and if it is a hierarchy, which level are you
   reading?* A silent primary source is the most common reason two people disagree about a
   settled contract.
2. *Which publication of the figure governs — the first print or the latest revision?* On the
   regulated venues the answer is usually the first, and it is usually written down.
3. *If the source has not published, is resolution delayed or is the outcome determined another
   way?* ForecastEx delays and posts a notice; a feed-resolved market falls through to a tolerance
   window instead.
4. *Has a review or a clarification been opened on this market, and where is it posted?* Every
   venue commits to publishing that somewhere — a website notice, a system notification, an on-chain
   clarification — and none of them will email you unprompted about a market you do not hold.
5. *If this question is voided, do I receive $1.00 or what I paid?* You now know the answer is
   almost always the second one. Ask anyway, in writing, before you size the position.

**Size the position for the worst branch, not the modal one.** The modal outcome is that the source
publishes on time, the exchange settles the next day and none of this matters. The branch that
should set your size is the one where the question is ambiguous, the review takes as long as it
takes, and the contract returns your cost basis. If that branch is survivable, the mechanism is a
detail. If it is not, the mechanism was the trade.

**And check which entity you are actually trading with.** The clearest illustration in this
catalogue is one brand with two answers: [Polymarket US](https://predictionmarkets.tools/tools/polymarket-us) determines outcomes
itself under a filed rulebook and its determinations are final, while [Polymarket](https://predictionmarkets.tools/tools/polymarket)'s
international platform determines nothing and cannot reverse what UMA finalises. Same name, same
look, opposite answers to "who do I complain to". The [prediction-market venues](https://predictionmarkets.tools/categories/prediction-market-venues)
listing carries the resolution mechanism on every card, which is the fastest way to see how far
apart they really are.

## Tools this bears on

- [Kalshi](https://predictionmarkets.tools/tools/kalshi.md) — A CFTC-designated exchange for event contracts, settled in dollars against named sources.
- [Polymarket US](https://predictionmarkets.tools/tools/polymarket-us.md) — Polymarket's CFTC-designated US exchange — dollars, KYC, and no on-chain oracle.
- [Polymarket](https://predictionmarkets.tools/tools/polymarket.md) — Self-custody event contracts on an on-chain order book, resolved by the UMA oracle.
- [ForecastEx](https://predictionmarkets.tools/tools/forecastex.md) — Economic and climate contracts on a CFTC exchange that pays interest on your collateral.
- [Limitless](https://predictionmarkets.tools/tools/limitless.md) — Event contracts on Base, collateralised in USDC, traded on a central limit order book.
- [Manifold](https://predictionmarkets.tools/tools/manifold.md) — Anyone can open a question, anyone can take a side, and the currency buys nothing.

## FAQ

### Who actually decides how a market resolved?

It depends on the venue, and the four answers are not variations of one thing. On Kalshi, Polymarket US and ForecastEx the exchange itself determines the outcome and its determination is final under its own filed rules. On Polymarket's international platform an oracle proposal with a bond behind it decides, and a dispute escalates to a vote of UMA token holders. On Limitless a price feed decides most markets and the team decides the rest. On Manifold the person who created the question decides.

### Why did my market stop trading but not pay out?

Because trading closes at expiration and settlement happens afterwards, and every venue separates the two. Kalshi and ForecastEx both state settlement no later than the day after expiration unless the outcome is under review. An undisputed Polymarket proposal becomes redeemable about two hours after it is made; a disputed one takes four to six days. Limitless markets resolved by the team are typically settled 24 to 72 hours after the deadline.

### Can I appeal a resolution I think is wrong?

On the regulated US exchanges, no. Polymarket US Rule 10.4 says the Company has full discretion in reviewing markets and its determinations are final; the Kalshi terms filed with the CFTC say determinations of the Outcome Review Committee are final and not subject to review; ForecastEx says the same of its Event Review Committee. On Polymarket's international platform anyone can dispute a proposal within two hours by posting a bond, which is the only third-party challenge in this catalogue.

### What happens if a question turns out to be ambiguous?

You usually get your entry price back rather than the dollar you thought you had won. Polymarket's rare Unknown outcome pays 50 cents to each side. ForecastEx Rule 414 settles at the most recent last prices, with a combined payout for one Yes and one No that shall not exceed $1.00. Polymarket US Rule 10.5 settles contracts about a person at last traded prices before the event. Limitless refunds what you paid for the shares that should have won.

### Does the market title decide anything?

No. Every venue here resolves against a named source and a written payout condition, and several of them say so explicitly. The Kalshi terms filed with the CFTC state that all instructions on how to access the underlying are non-binding and provided for convenience only. ForecastEx repeats in each contract document that its links are informational and the source agency may publish elsewhere at any time. Read the rules, not the headline.

## Sources

1. [Polymarket US Rulebook, September 14, 2026](https://polymarketexchange.com/files/legal/latest/rulebook) — QCX LLC d/b/a Polymarket US, 2026-09-14
2. [How Are Markets Disputed?](https://docs.polymarket.com/polymarket-learn/markets/dispute) — Polymarket, read 2026-09-19
3. [Resolution](https://docs.polymarket.com/concepts/resolution) — Polymarket, read 2026-09-19
4. [ForecastEx LLC Rulebook, Version Date September 17, 2026](https://data.forecastex.com/regulatory/ForecastEx_LLC_Rulebook.pdf) — ForecastEx LLC, 2026-09-17
5. [UNR Contract Terms and Conditions](https://data.forecastex.com/regulatory/UNRTermsandConditions.pdf) — ForecastEx LLC, read 2026-09-19
6. [CPI Contract Terms and Conditions](https://data.forecastex.com/regulatory/CPITermsandConditions.pdf) — ForecastEx LLC, read 2026-09-19
7. [CFTC Regulation 40.2(a) self-certification, MOTORSPORTH2H, with Appendix A terms and conditions](https://www.cftc.gov/sites/default/files/filings/ptc/26/03/ptc03232641715.pdf) — KalshiEX LLC, filed with the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, 2026-03-23
8. [Series KXCPIYOY, trade-api v2](https://api.elections.kalshi.com/trade-api/v2/series/KXCPIYOY) — Kalshi, read 2026-09-19
9. [PRESPARTY Contract Terms and Conditions](https://assets.kalshi.com/contract_terms/PRESPARTY.pdf) — KalshiEX LLC, read 2026-09-19
10. [Market resolution](https://docs.limitless.exchange/user-guide/market-resolution) — Limitless, read 2026-09-19
11. [Refund policy](https://docs.limitless.exchange/user-guide/refund-policy) — Limitless, read 2026-09-19
12. [Manifold FAQ](https://docs.manifold.markets/faq) — Manifold, read 2026-09-19

*Last updated 2026-09-21. A reference page, corrected in place — not a dated post.*