Hypertake is an independent web interface for Hyperliquid's HIP-4 prediction markets (outcomes) and perpetual futures. You connect your own wallet; every order is placed, matched and settled on Hyperliquid, and your money stays in your own Hyperliquid account. Hypertake is not affiliated with or endorsed by Hyperliquid. Markdown of this page: https://hypertake.net/docs/outcomes/price-is-the-chance.md. Full documentation index: https://hypertake.net/llms.txt
Prediction markets · Concepts
Price is the chance
How to read a prediction market price as a probability: cents, bid and ask, the spread, and estimates
A share's price in cents reads as the market's chance, in percent. If Yes trades at 40¢, traders as a whole are pricing about a 40% chance that the answer is Yes, because a share that pays $1 when Yes wins is worth about 40¢ if Yes happens 40% of the time.
Why the price equals the chance
A winning share pays $1 and a losing share $0. If you bought many shares at 40¢ in markets where Yes really happened 40% of the time, you'd get back $1 on 40% of them: 40¢ a share on average, exactly what you paid. So a fair price in cents is the chance in percent. When you think the real chance is higher than the price, buying is a bet that the market is wrong.
ExamplePriya thinks the market is too low
- Yes costs 30¢, so the market says about 30%. Priya thinks the real chance is closer to 50%.
- If she's right, a Yes share is worth about 50¢ on average and she's paying 30¢: an edge of about 20¢ a share.
- If she's wrong and it's really 30% or less, she's paying a fair price or overpaying. The price doesn't promise anything either way.
FlowPrice 30¢ = market says 30% → Priya says 50% → buys Yes, expecting about 50¢ of value per 30¢ share
Bid, ask and the spread
A market has two prices at any moment. The ask is the cheapest price a seller will accept now: what buying costs. The bid is the highest price a buyer will pay now: what selling brings. The gap between them is the spread, and the chance sits between the two.
Because Hyperliquid merges the Yes and No books, each side's prices mirror the other's: Yes's ask is $1 minus No's bid, and Yes's bid is $1 minus No's ask. That's why buying Yes and buying No usually add up to a little more than $1: the extra is the spread.
| Bid (sell now) | Ask (buy now) | Middle | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yes | 40¢ | 42¢ | 41¢ |
| No | 58¢ (= 100 − 42) | 60¢ (= 100 − 40) | 59¢ |
Which price Hypertake shows where
| Where | What the number is | When it's left out |
|---|---|---|
| Market cards (Outcomes, Closing soon) | The middle of each side's bid and ask, or the one price quoted if only one side has orders | No number when the spread is over 30¢ or the book is empty |
| Chance (a chart's headline, a question's rows) | The middle of the Yes book | Only shown from a book whose spread is 10¢ or less |
| Buy buttons on a market page | The side's ask: what buying actually costs | "—" when there are no real sellers (the two asks add up to more than $1.50) |
| Sell ticket, positions | The bids: what selling actually brings | Shares nobody is bidding for count as $0 |
Estimates, when the book says nothing
A young or quiet price market can have no usable orders. Rather than show nothing, Hypertake estimates the chance from the underlying's price now, its volatility over the last day and the time left (a standard log-normal model). Estimates are drawn faded so you can tell them apart, and a real price from a tight book always replaces them.
Prices near 0¢ and 100¢
- Prices are rounded to a tenth of a cent. Under 10¢ one decimal shows (4.5¢); at 99.95¢ and above the price shows as 100¢.
- The phone writes the extremes as "<0.1¢" and ">99.9¢".
- Offers at 99.95¢ or more are left out of buying: a share bought at 100¢ can at best pay back its cost.
- A price near 100¢ isn't a sure thing. A market at 97¢ still loses 3% of the time, and late swings happen.
Why do Yes and No add up to more than 100¢?
Because each button shows what buying costs, the ask, and each side's ask is $1 minus the other side's bid. The extra over 100¢ is the spread. The middle prices add up to 100¢.
Why does the card say 41¢ but buying costs 42¢?
The card shows the middle of the bid and ask; buying pays the ask. If you spend more than the first offer holds, you also climb to higher offers, and the ticket shows your average price before you buy.
Does the price move when I buy?
It can. A large order takes the cheapest offers first and then pricier ones. The phone ticket warns "Size moves the price to X¢" when your order would reach more than 1¢ above the best offer.
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