Polymarket Legal Regulatory Trader

Trades Polymarket prediction markets on landmark court cases, antitrust rulings, SEC enforcement actions, EU regulatory decisions, and DOJ investigations. Use when you want to capture alpha on legal markets using court filing data, PACER records, and regulatory docket signals.

Legal & Regulatory Trader

This is a template. The default signal is keyword-based market discovery combined with probability-extreme detection — remix it with the data sources listed in the Edge Thesis below. The skill handles all the plumbing (market discovery, trade execution, safeguards). Your agent provides the alpha.

Strategy Overview

Legal prediction markets have enormous information asymmetry — most Polymarket retail participants don't read court filings or understand regulatory procedure. They price criminal convictions as coin flips when the actual DOJ conviction rate is ~97%. This skill encodes documented institutional base rates directly into conviction sizing.

Signal Logic

Default Signal: Conviction-Based Sizing with Precedent Bias

1. Discover active legal and regulatory markets on Polymarket
2. Compute base conviction from distance to threshold (0% at boundary → 100% at p=0/p=1)
3. Apply precedent_bias() — multiplier based on documented legal/regulatory outcome statistics
4. Size = max(MIN_TRADE, conviction × bias × MAX_POSITION) — capped at MAX_POSITION
5. Skip markets with spread > MAX_SPREAD or fewer than MIN_DAYS to resolution

Precedent Bias (built-in, no API required)

Retail prices legal outcomes as coin flips. precedent_bias() corrects this using documented historical statistics:

Action type	Historical rate	Multiplier
DOJ criminal conviction (post-indictment)	~97% plea/conviction	1.35x
Class action settlement	~90%+ settle before trial	1.25x
SEC enforcement (post-Wells Notice)	~85% result in formal action	1.20x
EU Phase 2 antitrust outcome	~80%+ conditions or fine	1.20x
SCOTUS reversal (cert granted)	~70% reverse lower court	1.15x
Crypto enforcement (post-charges)	High after formal charges	1.15x
Big tech merger blocked (FTC/DOJ)	~40–60%, rising trend	1.10x
Regulatory approval / clearance	Harder to time	0.80x

Example: "Will X be convicted?" market at 25% after indictment → conviction 34% × 1.35x = 46% → $14. Retail prices this at 25%; base rate says 97%. That's the edge.

Why These Base Rates Hold

• DOJ plea rate: Federal prosecutors only indict when they have ~overwhelming evidence — they win 97%+ of cases taken to trial or plea
• EU Phase 2: The EC procedural calendar is legally defined — opening Phase 2 is a strong signal of serious concerns
• SCOTUS cert: The Court takes cases primarily to correct errors — ~70% reversal is a documented statistical pattern
• Class action: Discovery costs and litigation risk make settlement the rational outcome in ~90%+ of cases

Remix Signal Ideas

• CourtListener API: Free PACER docket API — monitor filing velocity as leading indicator before markets react
• SEC EDGAR enforcement: Track Wells Notice dates to anticipate formal action timing (avg 4–6 months)
• EU Competition docket: Phase 2 opening date + 13 months = almost exact closing date
• Courtroom View Network: Live trial feeds for real-time signal on verdict direction

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 — nothing runs automatically until you configure it in Simmer UI.

Required Credentials

Variable	Required	Notes
SIMMER_API_KEY	Yes	Trading authority. Treat as 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	30	Max USDC per trade (reached at 100% conviction)
SIMMER_MIN_VOLUME	8000	Min market volume filter (USD)
SIMMER_MAX_SPREAD	0.10	Max bid-ask spread (10%)
SIMMER_MIN_DAYS	7	Min days until resolution
SIMMER_MAX_POSITIONS	5	Max concurrent open positions
SIMMER_YES_THRESHOLD	0.38	Buy YES if market price ≤ this value
SIMMER_NO_THRESHOLD	0.62	Sell NO if market price ≥ this value
SIMMER_MIN_TRADE	5	Floor for any trade (min USDC regardless of conviction)

Dependency

simmer-sdk by Simmer Markets (SpartanLabsXyz)

• PyPI: https://pypi.org/project/simmer-sdk/
• GitHub: https://github.com/SpartanLabsXyz/simmer-sdk