Parimutuel Pool Markets

Parimutuel markets are Strike's pool-based prediction market format. They sit alongside the FBA orderbook: orderbook markets are best for actively traded binary outcomes, while pool markets are best for multi-choice events, longer-running questions, and simple buy-and-hold exposure without managing limit orders. This page covers standard USDT/STRIKE pool markets; creator-launched BEP20 pools are covered in Flap Token Pools.

What They Are

A parimutuel market has 2–8 outcomes. Traders choose an outcome and buy into that outcome's pool with the configured pool collateral, typically USDT or STRIKE. There is no orderbook and no selling/cashout in the current pool UX — positions are internal, non-transferable claims on the final pool.

When the market resolves, the winning side receives:

1. their own winning principal back, plus

2. a proportional share of the losing outcome pools.

Losing outcomes pay nothing. If a market is invalid or cancelled, users can refund their principal.

Orderbook vs. Parimutuel

Feature	FBA Orderbook Markets	Parimutuel Pool Markets
Best for	Liquid binary markets and active trading	Multi-choice events and simple directional exposure
Outcomes	Binary UP/DOWN or YES/NO	2–8 named outcomes
Pricing	Limit-order price discovery, $0.01–$0.99 ticks	Pool-implied probabilities from current liquidity
Execution	Periodic batch auctions at a uniform clearing price	Immediate buy into the selected outcome pool
Position management	Can sell before expiry through the orderbook	Buy-and-hold until claim/refund
Resolution	Pyth, AI, or admin fallback depending on market	Admin, AI, or Pyth with admin fallback
Payout	Winning positions redeem fixed value per lot	Winners split losing pools pro-rata

Both systems are fully collateralized and settle through on-chain contracts. Orderbook markets use USDT; standard pool markets use configured pool collateral such as USDT or STRIKE.

Market Timing

Parimutuel V2 separates the betting cutoff from the event timestamp:

• Trading close time — the last time users can buy into the pools.

• Resolution time — the event/reference timestamp used by the resolver.

This matters for markets where betting should close before the event concludes. For example, a sports market can stop accepting buys at kickoff but resolve after full time.

The contracts enforce resolutionTime >= tradingCloseTime. Buying and pool closing use tradingCloseTime; admin, AI, and Pyth resolution paths use resolutionTime.

Resolution Modes

Admin

The market creator/admin resolves to the winning outcome or marks the market invalid. This is useful for controlled internal markets and events that require human judgment.

AI

The Parimutuel AI resolver sends a configured prompt to the Flap AI Oracle. The AI proposes the winning outcome, then a challenge/finality flow allows review before finalization. If the AI path fails or is challenged, the market can fall back to admin resolution.

Pyth

The Parimutuel Pyth resolver uses a Pyth price feed at the market's resolutionTime and maps price thresholds to outcomes. This supports price-range markets such as "Where will BTC/USD be at 12:00 UTC?" with multiple buckets.

Pool Pricing

Strike uses bounded curve presets to turn pool balances into displayed probabilities and projected payouts. The default recommended curve is the independent-log preset with L = 40,000 USDT; a more conservative L = 100,000 USDT preset is also supported.

The frontend shows:

• each outcome's current pool size,

• implied probability,

• projected payout for a new buy,

• total pool size,

• user's positions and claim/refund state.

Lifecycle

1. Created — outcomes, resolver mode, trading close time, resolution time, fee, and curve are configured.

2. Open — users buy into outcome pools until tradingCloseTime.

3. Closed — no more buys; the market waits for resolutionTime.

4. Resolving — AI/Pyth/admin resolution is requested or submitted.

5. Resolved — winning outcome is final; winners can claim.

6. Invalid/Cancelled — users can refund principal.

Contracts

The standard parimutuel stack is separate from the orderbook stack:

• ParimutuelFactory — creates markets and coordinates lifecycle/resolution.

• ParimutuelPoolManager — handles buys, pool accounting, and curve math.

• ParimutuelVault — holds configured collateral for standard pool markets.

• ParimutuelRedemption — claims winning payouts and refunds invalid markets.

• ParimutuelAIResolver — Flap AI Oracle integration and challenge/finality flow.

• ParimutuelPythResolver — Pyth price-threshold resolution.

See Deployments for live addresses.

Flap Token Pools

Flap Token Pools use a separate native-token pool stack for creator-launched markets backed by arbitrary BEP20 collateral. They share the same parimutuel idea — buy an outcome, winners split losing pools — but use hosted official metadata, an on-chain creator prompt, FLAP AI resolution, and a 0.05 BNB creator bond. See Flap Token Pools.