Polymarket Paid Creators for Fake $1.9M in Bets: WSJ
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- Polymarket paid dozens of mostly college-age creators $2,000–$3,000 a month to film fake bets on near-identical copies of its website — including a dummy domain at "poiymarket.com" that a source said was built by Polymarket itself — and told them not to disclose the arrangement.
- A Wall Street Journal review of 1,105 videos from 10 creators posted since December found wagers in about 70% of them and determined that none of the roughly $1.9 million in bets shown were real.
- Across 118 videos, creators touted nearly $900,000 in fabricated winnings on bets that would have actually lost more than $166,000, including college student George Makihara's staged $100,000 "win" on a wager that Trump would say "McDonald's" — a word Trump never said that month, with 50-plus real accounts on the same bet all losing.
- Polymarket used marketing firm Virality to manage the "clipper" network, paying creators only when at least 60% of their audience was U.S.-based — a country whose users remain barred from the main platform, which has been geoblocked there since Polymarket's 2022 CFTC settlement.
- The fake-bet revelation lands as Polymarket faces a state-level backlash: Kentucky sued the platform and rival Kalshi this week over alleged unlicensed sports wagering, echoing earlier moves by Nevada and Arizona, while the Trump administration is countersuing states to defend prediction-market operators.
- Donald Trump Jr. is an investor in Polymarket and an adviser to both it and Kalshi — a tie Senator Elizabeth Warren cited in accusing the CFTC of being "steamrolled" by the industry, noting enforcement actions fell from 58 to 11 in a year alongside a roughly 25% workforce cut.
- Polymarket told the WSJ it is "committed to maintaining accurate, fair, and transparent markets" and plans a comprehensive audit of its promotional content.
Why it matters: Polymarket's credibility push in the U.S. — where it re-entered last November through a CFTC-licensed exchange while keeping its main site geoblocked — collides with evidence that $1.9 million in its most visible promotional content was fabricated, even as state attorneys general sue over unlicensed gambling and Trump Jr.'s investment links the company to the very administration defending the industry.
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