A Wall Street Journal investigation revealed a large-scale Polymarket campaign promoting fake content. The video creators filmed fictitious bets on copies of the Polymarket website and earned $2,000â$3,000 per month. The WSJ analyzed 1,105 videos from 10 bloggersânone of the bets were real.
In one video, a college student âwonâ $100,000 by placing a $1,000 bet that Trump would publicly say the word âMcDonald's.â On the real Polymarket, all 50 accounts that made such a bet lost. In 118 videos, bloggers showed combined winnings totaling nearly $900,000âwhile identical real bets would have resulted in losses exceeding $166,000.
Polymarket announced an internal audit of promotional content. The company has previously faced accusations of insider trading: in May, federal prosecutors charged a Google employee with earning $1.2 million from confidential information via the platform. In the U.S., Polymarket operates in a limited capacity following the settlement of CFTC claims in 2022.