What is a Polymarket clarification, and what is "Additional context"?

A clarification is text Polymarket adds to a market's rules when the rules don't settle a case that came up. It appears at the end of the rules under the heading "Additional context", and it can change who gets paid. Polymarket announces it in the #clarifications channel of its Discord. Nothing is sent to the people who hold the market.

What Polymarket says it does

Polymarket's help page says a market's rules can be clarified without changing its intent, that the clarification is posted as "Additional context" in the rules, and that when it happens the order book is cleared and all resting orders are cancelled (How are markets clarified?). A community guide also covers clarifications (Polymarket guide, clarifications).

Why it matters to a holder

A clarification can decide an outcome. On June 1, 2026 Polymarket added one to its MicroStrategy market, which had traded about $175M, tying resolution to the date a sale was disclosed. The top Yes holder lost about $500,000 and said it "was not written down on the market" (DeFi Rate). In the same dispute, a clarification after settlement cleared about $3.8M of Yes positions across 1,838 accounts (KuCoin News).

How to see one

1. Open the market on RulesWatch. Every version of its rules is listed, with the added words in green. A clarification shows up as a green block at the end of the text.
2. Open the change page for the exact window: my last check with the old text and the first check with the new. Polymarket doesn't publish the time of an edit.
3. Press Watch to get the next one on Discord, by webhook or in a feed. The free plan covers 1 market. See how alerts work.

What the record shows

Since I started recording on Oct 31, 2026, I have logged 62 on Polymarket (1 rules edit, 18 disputed outcomes, 42 date changes, 1 title change). None is labeled a clarification yet. The label comes from the wording: text that is only added, or that reads like a clarification, gets it. 1 more is a rewritten rules text or resolution source.

Latest edits to Polymarket rules text

• Will Anthropic's valuation hit (HIGH) $1.75T by December 31?: Rules edited, Nov 4, 2026, 00:10 UTC.

What I can't see

A clarification posted only on Discord or X, with no edit to the market, never reaches Polymarket's API. Each market page has a box to link one, and watchers get an alert when someone does. For the terms around this, see the glossary.

Numbers as of Nov 4, 2026, 19:11 UTC; they refresh every 6 hours.