Execution Latency in a Polymarket Trading Bot: Four Layers

Unlike centralized exchanges where microsecond edges justify colocation and kernel-bypass networking, execution on Polymarket, an on-chain prediction market, follows different rules. A developer breaks down the execution pipeline of a bot that has placed 11,717 trades into four layers: signal generation, EIP-712 order signing, CLOB API submission, and on-chain confirmation. The first three stages are within the developer's control and can be compressed to a few hundred milliseconds, but Polygon's block-time-driven confirmation, typically 1-3 seconds, is treated as a fixed, uncontrollable cost.

This reality explains the bot's hard cutoff 90 seconds before market resolution. The T-90 rule isn't about signal quality; it's a reliability buffer ensuring that even under worst-case latency across all four layers, orders still land before the resolution window closes. The bot also relies almost exclusively on limit orders rather than market orders to avoid crossing wide spreads on thin binary markets, cancelling unfilled orders after 30 seconds instead of chasing them.

Small optimizations, keep-alive connections, pre-built order templates, and careful regional server selection, shave off tens of milliseconds each, but the developer stresses that architectural decisions matter more than micro-tuning. Average signal-to-confirmation time runs around 280ms on good days and 600ms during congestion, while only about 4% of orders fail to fill within 30 seconds, a rate the developer accepts since chasing those trades with market orders would cost more in slippage than the missed opportunities are worth.