FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2026|No. 18065
News · Business

Polymarket Paid Creators for Deceptive Betting Videos, WSJ Reports

A Wall Street Journal investigation found that Polymarket paid social media creators to produce videos of fake bets on the prediction market without disclosing the paid partnership.

Illustration of the Polymarket platform on a smartphone; photo by Omar Marques/SOPA Images/Getty Images.
Illustration of the Polymarket platform on a smartphone; photo by Omar Marques/SOPA Images/Getty Images.
2 sources
Pipeline ingest
3 reads
Positive / Neutral / Negative
1 countries
Related coverage

Polymarket reportedly paid creators to post deceptive videos about fake bets

Posted: 9:35 AM PDT · June 21, 2026

Anthony Ha

In this photo illustration, a Polymarket logo is displayed on a smartphone on top of a laptop. Image Credits: Omar Marques/SOPA Images/LightRocket / Getty Images

Polymarket has been paying online creators to post deceptive videos that show them making lucrative bets on the prediction market, according to a new investigation in the Wall Street Journal.

The WSJ said that it analyzed 1,100 videos about Polymarket and also viewed instructional materials that the company provided to creators. Many of those videos were reportedly filmed on “near-perfect copies” of the Polymarket website, while featuring trades and winnings that were not real. The creator videos were then amplified by a “social-media army” deployed by a marketing contractor.

The WSJ said the company also told those creators not to specify that they’d been paid by Polymarket, although the creators started adding “@polymarket partner” to their bios after journalists began asking questions.

Razeen Khan, a college student and creator who worked with Polymarket until March, compared the practice to commercials that make fast food look more appealing than it is in real life: “We’re depicting what actually happens.”

Polymarket said it is “committed to maintaining accurate, fair, and transparent markets” and plans to conduct an audit of its promotional content.

PAN's pipeline reviewed approximately 2 open sources for this article. No human editor reviewed this article before publication.

Related Reads

Show on timeline →

Earlier on PAN

More in Business →