How to Read a Combo or Parlay-Style Ticket on Polymarket (US 2026)

Official Combos (trader guide and Combos API Overview): a combo is a user-defined instrument with 2–10 component legs. Each leg identifies an existing market symbol and whether the combo buys or sells that leg. Combo instruments trade through normal order entry; most combo price discovery starts with a request for quote (RFQ). Official Retail Combos API: create and read combo instruments through the Retail API — and that page stamps beta access required. Those are published US names. We will not paste Parlay, SGP, or Multi onto a header those pages do not print.

Official Sports FAQs list Winner (w/o ties), Winner (w/ ties), Spread, Total, Future, Qualifier, and Player Prop. That table does not reprint Combo, Parlay, Multi-leg, or Same-game parlay. Official Events & Markets teaching moneyline is “Who wins?” / “Will the Chiefs win?” — one game, one Yes/No. A combo is not that row. We will not invent a seventh sports type on that FAQ table.

Official Combos Create a Combo teaching legs pair an Athletic Event moneyline (their aec-mlb-nyy-bos-… slug) as SIDE_BUY with a Total Score (their tsc-nba-bos-lal-…-207pt5 slug) as SIDE_SELL. That is two existing markets — a winner sentence and a combined-score sentence — listed as legs on one caoc-… instrument. Those are docs examples. They are not a live 2026 board we reprint, not a juice number, and not a sportsbook same-game parlay we invent.

Official Browse Markets: find active markets on the home screen, then scroll the top categories. Official copy names professional football, professional basketball, professional hockey, and college football. It does not reprint a retail tab labelled Combo, Parlay, Multi-leg, or Same-game parlay. Official Place a Trade is still tap a market, then Yes or No, then a dollar amount. If the live US product chips Combo, lists several existing markets as legs, or opens a request-for-quote on a bundled instrument, follow that live stamp. If it does not, the action is: look for one ticket whose listed outcomes are more than one existing market — not one Yes/No, not a winner field of separate rows, and not tonight’s moneyline alone.

Official Combos: the combo is the instrument. The legs are existing markets the combo buys or sells. That is not tapping Yes on Team A and Yes on Team B as two separate fills. Official Place a Trade on a single market is still one question. Official Events & Markets: a market is a single yes/no question, and one event can have multiple markets attached — those attached markets stay separate tickets unless they are listed as legs on a combo. How to read a multi-outcome market is that field of rows. This page is the bundled instrument.

Official Combos: each leg contains an existing market symbol and a buy or sell side. Official Glossary: a long is trading on the outcome occurring; a short is trading on it not occurring. Official Combos settlement copy tells you not to invert a SIDE_SELL leg when you read that leg’s YES/LONG result. Buying the combo is not automatically Yes on every printed team. Read which side each listed leg holds.

Official Combos API: POST accepts 2–10 unique legs. Duplicate symbols and invalid combinations are rejected. Component symbols must be open, tradable, supported instruments. Official Combos quote rules print a 0.001 tick on current combo instruments. Those pages do not print a sportsbook parlay multiplier, a same-game parlay toggle, or a “field juice” table. We will not invent one. See prediction markets vs sportsbooks if you wanted a house parlay. That is a different product.

Official Combos / Official RFQ: each combo leg can carry a settlementPrice. Settlement is the raw YES/LONG result normalized to [0,1]. Do not invert it for SIDE_SELL. A present “0” is a valid settlement and is not the same as an absent field. That is the published US settlement language for the listed legs. Those pages do not print a sportsbook sentence that every listed side has to hit for the bundle to pay $1.00. If the live card prints a different bundle-grade sentence, that stamp wins.

Official Glossary: each contract settles at $1.00 if the outcome occurs and $0.00 if it does not. Official Market Settlement uses the same $1 / $0 grade. Official Sports FAQs still put last-fair-market-price paths on postponements, cancellations, and some withdrawals. We will not mash a sportsbook “all legs must hit or the slip is dead” rule onto a combo those Combos pages do not grade that way. Read the listed legs and the Rules block on the instrument in front of you.

Tapping Yes on a moneyline and Yes on a total as two orders is two event contracts, each with its own ask, its own size, and its own settlement. Official Combos is one instrument whose legs are those markets. Official Place a Trade does not turn two swipes into a combo. How to read a moneyline and How to tell a spread from a total stay on their own URLs. This page does not clone them.

Official Events & Markets teaching moneyline is “Who wins?” / “Will the Chiefs win?” Official Sports FAQs call that Winner (w/o ties) or Winner (w/ ties). That is one game. A combo can list a moneyline as one leg next to another existing market. The moneyline how-to is the single winner sentence. This page is the instrument that needs more than one listed market on it.

A series-winner sentence is who takes the listed series — not a bundle of games we invent. Official Winner (w/ ties) / Athletic Tie is three contracts on one game, including Draw. Official Sports FAQs Future is a championship, award, or tournament. None of those pages print Combo. How to read a series winner, How to read a three-way winner, and How to read a draw or tie keep those sentences apart. This page does not clone them.

Official Sports FAQs: a Spread asks whether a team wins by a certain margin; a Total asks whether the combined score is over or under a threshold. Official Events & Markets lists those as separate markets on the same game. Official Combos teaching copy can list a total as one leg of a combo. Until they are listed as legs on one instrument, they are two tickets. How to tell a spread from a total is that split.

A sportsbook parlay multiplies several legs into one house ticket. Official Combos never print Parlay, SGP, or a juice table. Official Place a Trade is still Yes or No on the sentence you opened — or, on a combo, buy or sell of each listed leg. See prediction markets vs sportsbooks if you wanted a house parlay. That is a different product.