# Liquidity

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Canonical: https://novigapi.com/learn/liquidity

Liquidity is how much you can trade in a market, and how quickly, without moving the price against yourself.

A liquid market lets you trade size at or near the quoted price. An illiquid market quotes a nice price but has little behind it, so a larger order eats through several levels and pays more on average. Liquidity has three parts: spread, how close the best bid and ask are; depth, how many contracts sit near the best price; and resilience, how quickly makers refill the book after a trade.

## How it works

Makers create liquidity by resting orders; takers consume it. When many makers compete, spreads tighten and depth grows. Liquidity is usually highest on main lines in popular leagues close to the start, and lowest on niche props, long-dated futures and markets that just opened. It also drops sharply around news, when makers pull their orders to avoid being picked off.

## Worked example: slippage

Two Novig-style markets with the same 58% Yes ask but different depth behind it:

Cost of buying Yes in a deep and a thin market

| Order size | Deep market average | Deep cost | Thin market average | Thin cost |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 500 contracts | 58.0% | $290.00 | 58.0% | $290.00 |
| 2,000 contracts | 58.0% | $1,160.00 | 58.6% | $1,172.00 |
| 4,800 contracts | 58.0% | $2,784.00 | 59.4% | $2,849.00 |


The deep market has at least 5,000 contracts at 58%. The thin market has 800 at 58%, 1,500 at 59% and 2,500 at 60%. Filling 4,800 contracts in the thin market costs $65 more, the slippage. That is about 1.35 points of price, so any smaller edge disappears at that size. A thin book also makes a fair midpoint less reliable, which matters for anything you price off it, such as an arb leg sized in the [arbitrage calculator](https://novigapi.com/arbitrage-calculator).

## On Novig

Novig's liquidity comes from makers, and Novig pays them to supply it: per its Maker Credit Program (checked 12 Nov 2026), makers earn 25% of the taker fee on game-market fills matched in-game and 50% on eligible futures. Novig's book holds bids only, so the depth behind a Yes ask is the quantity on the No bid side. Our `/orderbook/{id}` endpoint returns every level with implied asks computed, and `/markets` returns volume and open interest, a good proxy for which markets stay liquid.

## Common mistakes

- Sizing from the top of the book. Check how much sits at each level before you send a large order.
- Trusting a fair price from a thin market. A small order can move the midpoint several points.
- Expecting liquidity to persist through the start. Novig's docs say resting orders are voided when an event goes live, so depth resets in-game.

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