WSJ: $1.9M in Fake Bets Propped Up Polymarket Creator Videos

A Wall Street Journal investigation has found that roughly $1.9 million in bets displayed across more than 1,100 creator videos promoting Polymarket were not real, exposing a fake-engagement campaign at the world's largest prediction market as it pursues U.S. regulatory approval and institutional backing.

The WSJ probe, published Saturday, reviewed 1,105 videos from 10 creators posted since December and found a wager in about 70% of them. None of the roughly $1.9 million in bets shown was genuine. Across 118 of those videos, creators touted nearly $900,000 in fabricated winnings on bets that would have actually lost more than $166,000 in real markets.

Dummy Versions of Polymarket

The mechanics ran through dummy versions of Polymarket's site. Creators were filmed appearing to place trades on near-identical copies of the platform, including one accessible at the misspelled domain "poiymarket.com," the WSJ reported. A source familiar with the matter told the WSJ that the dummy site had been built by Polymarket; other videos indicated the sites were test environments for the company's engineers.

Polymarket employed marketing firm Virality to manage a network of "clippers," mostly college-age influencers, to produce the videos. Creators were paid roughly $2,000 to $3,000 a month and told not to disclose the arrangement, according to the WSJ. Some only added "@polymarket partner" to their bios after the Journal made inquiries.

One clip posted in January showed college student George Makihara celebrating a $100,000 win on a bet that President Donald Trump would say "McDonald's" that month. The WSJ found that the footage Makihara was responding to had been filmed two months earlier. Trump never said the word publicly in January, and more than 50 real accounts that placed the same bet all lost.

U.S. Audience Focus

Creators were only paid when at least 60% of their audience was based in the U.S., the WSJ reported. That targeting is notable given Polymarket's history with U.S. regulators. The platform settled with the CFTC for $1.4 million in January 2022 over failing to obtain proper registration, after which it geoblocked American users. The platform has since been working toward a fuller U.S. re-entry through Polymarket US, a CFTC-licensed exchange, though its main site remains geoblocked for U.S. users.

Polymarket told the WSJ it is "committed to maintaining accurate, fair, and transparent markets" and plans a comprehensive audit of its promotional content. As of publication, no statement had appeared on Polymarket's public channels.

Institutional Ambitions

The findings arrive as Polymarket has drawn significant Wall Street backing. NYSE owner Intercontinental Exchange has poured roughly $2 billion into Polymarket across successive funding rounds. Institutional market makers including Wintermute began quoting prediction markets as monthly event-contract volume passed $20 billion in 2026. Galaxy launched an institutional OTC prediction-markets desk anchored by a $10 million trade in June. Polymarket also booked its first on-chain institutional block trade against a compute price index earlier this month.

For institutional counterparties that rely on prediction market prices as a real-time data layer for decision-making, manufactured promotional activity raises questions about how platforms treat market integrity. The platform has separately worked to address manipulation concerns, tapping Chainalysis to build an on-chain insider-trading detection model in April.

Regulatory Context

The investigation lands as Polymarket faces compounding state-level legal pressure. Kentucky sued Polymarket and rival Kalshi over alleged unlicensed sports wagering, echoing earlier actions by Nevada and Arizona. The CFTC, under Chair Mike Selig, has pushed back on state jurisdiction and warned that forcing prediction markets offshore risks an FTX-style implosion, per the report. The CFTC has already sued Wisconsin and New Mexico to block state gaming laws from reaching federally regulated prediction markets.

The gaming industry has also mounted opposition: the American Gaming Association and tribal coalitions have pressed Congress to carve sports prediction markets out of the CLARITY Act, the crypto market-structure bill moving through the Senate. Donald Trump Jr. is an investor in Polymarket and an adviser to both it and Kalshi.