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Polymarket Paid Creators for Fake Wins, WSJ Investigation Finds
Polymarket paid creators to simulate fake trades on duplicate sites without disclosure, per WSJ. The company promised an audit. The scandal hits as prediction markets court institutional capital.
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Polymarket paid content creators to film themselves making fake trades and scoring phony wins, according to an investigation by The Wall Street Journal published Sunday.
The Journal analyzed more than 1,100 videos, reviewed instructional materials, and interviewed creators who worked with the prediction market. The company saturated social media with clips that looked genuine. Polymarket created near-exact copies of its own website, then told creators to simulate trades on those duplicate sites without disclosing they were being paid, the report said.
WSJ said it reviewed 1,105 videos posted by 10 creators endorsed by Polymarket's contractor between December and mid-May. In a majority of the clips, the creators placed a bet, though clues in the footage showed none of the wagers were real. Most just showed the bet being placed. A subset of 118 videos showed creators reacting to outdated footage or phony headlines indicating they had won. Those clips showed creators winning almost $900,000. In reality, those wagers would have lost more than $166,000, the Journal reported.
Polymarket is not available in the U.S. The report said the company's social media campaign targeted American users, who could access the site via a virtual private network.