Install
openclaw skills install @diagnostikon/polymarket-ladder-esports-kills-traderPolymarket Ladder Esports Kills Trader
Trades monotonicity violations in esports Total Kills O/U market ladders on Polymarket. Each esports match spawns multiple kill total thresholds that must be monotonically decreasing — when they are not, it is structural arbitrage. Sizes by conviction with violation magnitude scaling.
Ladder — Esports Kills Curve Trader
This is a template. The default signal is kill total O/U ladder violation detection for esports markets -- remix it with additional titles, map types, or live match data feeds. The skill handles all the plumbing (market discovery, ladder construction, trade execution, safeguards). Your agent provides the alpha.
Strategy Overview
Esports matches (Dota 2, CS2, Overwatch) list multiple kill total thresholds for the same game:
- "Team A vs Team B Total Kills O/U 47.5" = 58%
- "Team A vs Team B Total Kills O/U 48.5" = 55%
- "Team A vs Team B Total Kills O/U 49.5" = 52%
- "Team A vs Team B Total Kills O/U 50.5" = 54% <-- VIOLATION
These form a kill total ladder -- higher thresholds must always have lower OVER probability. When they don't, it is structural arbitrage.
The Edge: Kill Ladder Monotonicity Arbitrage
The probability of going OVER a lower kill threshold must always be greater than or equal to going OVER a higher threshold:
P(O/U 47.5 OVER) >= P(O/U 48.5 OVER) >= P(O/U 49.5 OVER) >= P(O/U 50.5 OVER)
If a higher threshold is priced above a lower one, the ladder is broken -- pure structural arbitrage.
Why Esports Kill Markets Are Especially Mispriced
- Narrow thresholds -- Dota 2 kill ladders use 1.0 increments (47.5, 48.5, 49.5) creating many adjacent rungs where violations can form
- Retail trades in silos -- most users view each O/U line independently, not the full ladder
- No market maker enforcement -- unlike sportsbooks, Polymarket has no central entity maintaining ladder consistency
- Game-specific volatility -- Dota 2 average kills per game is ~55 with high variance, meaning the ladder spans a wide range of plausible outcomes
- Multi-game series -- BO3 matches create separate ladders for Game 1, Game 2, Game 3, tripling the surface area for violations
Signal Logic
- Discover esports kills O/U markets via keyword search + bulk market fetch fallback
- Parse each question: extract match_key, game_number, kill_threshold
- Filter non-esports markets with regex (remove crypto, politics, weather noise)
- Group into ladders by (match_key, game_number)
- For each ladder with 2+ points:
- Sort by kill threshold ascending
- Check monotonicity: P(O/U X OVER) must decrease as X increases
- Rank violations by magnitude
- Trade only violations that pass threshold gates (YES_THRESHOLD / NO_THRESHOLD)
- Size by conviction (violation magnitude), not flat amount
Remix Signal Ideas
- Liquipedia API: Pull team Elo ratings and recent match history — teams with high-variance playstyles create wider kill distributions, meaning more O/U lines and more violation opportunities
- Dotabuff / OpenDota API: Fetch hero pick/ban data and lane matchups for the specific game — aggressive drafts with teamfight heroes predict higher kill totals, letting you weight which side of the monotonicity break to trade
- Live match data (PandaScore API): Stream real-time kill counts during a BO3 — if Game 1 had 60 kills, Game 2 O/U lines should shift up; if the market hasn't adjusted, that's an additional timing edge
- Map/patch meta analysis: After major game patches, kill totals shift systematically — track patch notes and historical post-patch kill averages to predict which direction the curve should move
Safety & Execution Mode
The skill defaults to paper trading (venue="sim"). Real trades only with --live flag.
| Scenario | Mode | Financial risk |
|---|---|---|
python trader.py | Paper (sim) | None |
| Cron / automaton | Paper (sim) | None |
python trader.py --live | Live (polymarket) | Real USDC |
autostart: false and cron: null mean nothing runs automatically until configured in Simmer UI.
Required Credentials
| Variable | Required | Notes |
|---|---|---|
SIMMER_API_KEY | Yes | Trading authority. Treat as a high-value credential. |
Tunables (Risk Parameters)
All declared as tunables in clawhub.json and adjustable from the Simmer UI.
| Variable | Default | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
SIMMER_MAX_POSITION | 40 | Max USDC per trade at full conviction |
SIMMER_MIN_TRADE | 5 | Floor for any trade |
SIMMER_MIN_VOLUME | 5000 | Min market volume filter (USD) |
SIMMER_MAX_SPREAD | 0.08 | Max bid-ask spread |
SIMMER_MIN_DAYS | 0 | Min days until resolution (0 = allow same-day) |
SIMMER_MAX_POSITIONS | 8 | Max concurrent open positions |
SIMMER_YES_THRESHOLD | 0.38 | Buy YES only if market probability <= this |
SIMMER_NO_THRESHOLD | 0.62 | Sell NO only if market probability >= this |
SIMMER_MIN_VIOLATION | 0.03 | Min ladder violation magnitude to trigger a trade |
Edge Thesis
Traditional sportsbooks have professional line-setters who enforce consistency across O/U lines for the same game. Polymarket has no such mechanism -- each kill total O/U market is priced by its own order book with its own liquidity pool. Esports kill markets are particularly vulnerable because:
- Kill thresholds are tightly spaced (1.0 increments), creating many adjacent rungs
- Multi-game series (BO3/BO5) multiply the number of ladders per match
- Esports-specific liquidity is thinner than mainstream sports, widening violations
- New thresholds added mid-match don't inherit pricing from neighbors
- Large directional flow on one threshold doesn't propagate to adjacent ones
This skill treats the kill total O/U ladder as a monotonic probability curve and trades the repair.
Dependency
simmer-sdk by Simmer Markets (SpartanLabsXyz)