An open-source bot that only bets "no" on Polymarket is making money

Sterling Crispin, an artist and engineer, built a Python bot called Nothing Ever Happens that does one thing on Polymarket -- it bets against every event. New prediction market opens? The bot buys "No." Automatically, around the clock, for every market it can find.

Polymarket is a platform where people wager real money on whether future events will happen -- elections, missile strikes, celebrity arrests, whatever. The prices function like probability estimates: if "Will X happen?" trades at 30 cents, the market thinks there's a 30% chance. Crispin's thesis is simple. People flock to dramatic scenarios and bid up prices on exciting outcomes. A potential war gets more attention (and more money) than the boring reality that most wars don't start. The bot exploits that asymmetry by automatically scanning for new markets and placing small bets on the dull outcome.

The README describes it as "an art project and not financial advice," which is the kind of disclaimer you attach to something that works. The strategy has a name in finance -- selling volatility -- but dressing it up as conceptual art makes the commentary land harder. Prediction markets are supposed to be wisdom-of-crowds truth machines. A bot that profits by betting nothing happens suggests the crowds are juiced on anxiety.

The code is open-source, so anyone can run their own copy. A swarm of nihilist bots all betting "No" on everything would be quite a thing to watch.