Polymarket is under fresh scrutiny after a Wall Street Journal investigation reported the prediction markets operator paid social media creators to post deceptive videos showing fake bets and phony winnings as part of a push to attract U.S. users.
The WSJ reported the campaign included more than 1,100 TikTok videos from 10 creators, with some clips showing fabricated wins on dummy sites made to resemble Polymarket.
Polymarket told CBS News that it is launching an internal investigation into the report.
The news comes as prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket are working to assert their integrity for US consumers as they fight lawsuits across the country with state regulators over jurisdiction.
What WSJ found about Polymarket
The WSJ reported that creators were paid to film themselves making bets and celebrating wins on imitation versions of Polymarket, not the actual platform. In some cases, the videos showed bets that would have been losses if they had been placed on the real market.
The paper said it reviewed more than 1,100 videos and found that about 118 of them depicted nearly $900,000 in fake winnings, even though those same bets would have lost more than $166,000.
The report said the videos were used as deceptive social advertising.
Advertising issue for commodities law
Polymarket has long marketed itself as a sophisticated prediction market, but the WSJ’s reporting suggests it also used influencer-style tactics more commonly associated with low-trust viral promotions.
That matters because commodities law, which governs prediction markets under the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, bars deceptive and misleading practices.
It also gives regulators and critics new ammunition as Polymarket continues to face questions about how it reaches U.S. users and whether its marketing crosses legal lines.
Polymarket response
According to CBS, Polymarket is auditing its promotional content. The company has not publicly detailed whether it knew the videos were misleading, but the reporting suggests the campaign involved paid creators, dummy websites and coordinated amplification designed to make the clips go viral.
That is likely to raise more questions than just whether the ads were deceptive.
It also touches on broader concerns about how prediction markets are presented to retail users, especially when the product itself sits in a still-developing regulatory environment.
Broader prediction markets context
This comes as prediction markets are already under legal and political pressure from state regulators, the CFTC and state and federal lawmakers trying to define their place in the gambling ecosystem. The CFTC is in the midst of a rule-making process for prediction markets while also battling state regulators for jurisdiction over the operators.
Polymarket’s marketing practices could give opponents a cleaner argument that the industry is not just innovative, but also willing to blur lines to grow.
It also lands in a moment when prediction markets are becoming more mainstream, which makes the reputational risk more consequential.
