Polymarket’s viral videos showed people winning big, but the bets were fake

Polymarket is seeking the CFTC’s permission to bring its main exchange back to the US, but also offers a more limited, US-regulated version of its trading service through a mobile app. Polymarket launched the app last year after acquiring QCX, a firm that is licensed by the CFTC and now operates under the name Polymarket US.

The Journal said it reviewed 1,105 videos made by 10 creators and identified fake bets totaling $1.9 million. While most of the videos were of fake bets being placed, there were 118 videos of “creators reacting to outdated footage or fake headlines suggesting they’d won.”

Those 118 videos showed creators winning almost $900,000, but the bets in reality would have lost over $166,000, the report said. The Polymarket “campaign racked up more than 140 million views on TikTok, YouTube and Instagram,” the report said, citing data from analytics provider Tubular.

Polymarket “hired and worked closely with” a marketing firm that enlisted a “social-media army to repost content made by 10 Polymarket creators in particular, Makihara among them,” the article said. The Journal said it reviewed “nearly 20,000 messages from a chat group for Polymarket’s online content-creating contractors, and instructional documents and videos prepared for them.”

Videos used fake “poiymarket” site

Video creators were reportedly told to make their posts seem “personal and organic,” to ensure that the word “Polymarket” did not appear in their account names, and to not disclose that they were paid. Creators were reportedly paid $2,000 to $3,000 a month.

“These creators didn’t initially identify themselves as paid by Polymarket, although one offered a $20 bonus code in his social-media bio. The creators started adding ‘@polymarket partner’ to their bios after the Journal started asking the company about its marketing operation,” the article said.

The Journal said it identified various discrepancies between the real Polymarket site and the fake ones used by creators. “One password-protected website has the creatively misspelled URL poiymarket.com, which is indistinguishable from polymarket.com when the ‘i’ is capitalized,” the report said.