The reputation of Polymarket (the Prediction betting Market on Polygon) has become collateral damage in a decision that has caused a meltdown in the Chess World. After 7 games and a 3.5, 3.5 tie, Magnus Carlsen and Ian Nepomniachtchi went to Fide and requested to share the Blitz Chess Championship title, something that wasn't allowed in the rules and had never been done before.

FIDE agreed and now Polymarket betters are again claiming they were scammed, as Polymarket has determined the winner of the tournament to be neither Magnus Carlsen or Ian Nepomniachtchi but instead to give the win to "Other"

Polymarket Betting odds as of Midnight January 1st 2025 UTC

Magnus Carlsen 71.5%

Ian Nepomniachtchi - 29%

Other .1%

https://preview.redd.it/a51r1mmzbfae1.png?1209&format=png&auto=webp&s=f06fdfbae2106696657afb09875ea0a02e85551c

https://preview.redd.it/3a1d7xa3cfae1.png?1227&format=png&auto=webp&s=9b16419b1b57d4353f0c1d24f2697b725def209a

Polymarket Odds Now:

Magnus Carlsen .2%

Ian Nepomniachtchi - 0% (lost)

Other 99.8%

https://preview.redd.it/gq3yc6qqcfae1.png?1224&format=png&auto=webp&s=9befb1ab14897627a916049824f38e80d88a47e4

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So What Happened?

Polymarket the prediction betting site on Polygon hosted a Market for who would win the World Blitz Chess Championship and because the rules state there can only be one winner, Polymarket didn't think it was necessary to make a betting option for "Multiple Winners". This in hindsight has caused further scam accusations directed towards the platform as anyone who voted that Magnus or Ian would win has lost all of their money.

Now logically one would think that if that two people win, this can be solved by giving both Ian and Magnus yes voters a 100% payout as they both technically won and the only people losing money would be the people who thought they wouldn't win. However Polymarket is literally incapable of having more than one winner in a market. If Magnus is market as the winner Ian will be marked as the loser and if Ian is then marked as the winner - Magnus will be changed to the loser.

It is vital that markets prepared on the NegRiskAdapter never result in a tie or will be unable to be determined. For any given market, once one question is resolved as Yes/True, all other questions must be resolved as No/False. This means that if the chosen oracle returns a second question as Yes/True, the call to reportOutcome will revert, and the market may not be able to fully resolved. Similarly, it is expected that one question will resolve to Yes/True, and it should not be the case that all questions for a given market resolve to No/False. Keep this in mind when preparing markets and questions on the NegRiskAdapter. source

So because Polymarket must have only one winner Polymarket has opted to make the "other" option the defacto winner of the World Blitz Chess Championship.

https://preview.redd.it/be991edzgfae1.png?1201&format=png&auto=webp&s=664cafe4add4b63dee44fc9eedf72607d1a00b57

Now this will technically go to UMA to vote if "Magnus should win" (Ian has already been marked as a loser) or "other should win" but because UMA "the decentralized Truth Machine" is decided by two whales (seriously) who vote as Polymarket tells them, this will resolve as Other, and anyone who voted that either Magnus Carlsen would win or Ian Nepomniachtchi would win, will lose all of their money... even though they both technically won.