Did prediction platform, Polymarket, pay content creators to instigate fake bets? Company responds

The report reviews 1,105 videos posted by 10 creators endorsed by Polymarket’s contractor between December 2025 and mid-May 2026. 70% of the videos showed creators placing bets, though the WSJ reported that many appeared not to involve real money. Some videos reportedly used older footage or simulated winning reactions.”

One such video shared on social media showed a password-protected website misspelling the Polymarket URL as “poiymarket.com” instead of “polymarket.com.” The website was reportedly taken down after WSJ confronted Polymarket about it. Over 100 videos, which indicated creators winning nearly a million dollars, showed creators reacting to old footage or fake headlines suggesting they had won. WSJ notes that such clips merely showed the bet being placed.

How did Polymarket react?

Polymarket, for its part, said it “prohibits trading based on stolen information, illegal tips, or information obtained in breach of a duty of trust, confidentiality, or other legal obligation,” as quoted by WSJ. It also noted, “Polymarket’s market integrity framework includes trade monitoring, on-chain transparency, reporting channels, and escalation processes to detect, review, and respond to suspicious activity. Where appropriate, we engage with regulators and law enforcement to support the integrity of our markets.”

According to Tech Crunch, Polymarket has denied the allegations, saying it is “committed to maintaining accurate, fair, and transparent markets” and plans to conduct an audit of its promotional content. 

Adin Ross linked to Polymarket ‘promotion deal’

The 25-year-old needs no introduction in the streaming world. With over 6 million followers on Instagram and TikTok each and over 7 million on Twitch (among others), Ross undoubtedly holds a significantly influential hold on the internet’s viral sphere. Now, WSJ cites a person familiar with the purported negotiation, saying that the social media phenom struck a multimillion-dollar deal with Polymarket, and he averages a half-hour per week on his livestream scrolling through the prediction market platform and commenting on potential trades.

According to the WSJ, at least five of Ross’ videos showed him identifying ways he could use inside information to trade on the platform. One such video believed to be boosting its promotion shed light on the influencer starting a conversation around the release date of a forthcoming album by Canadian hip-hop artist Drake, who has also frequently collaborated with Ross on major livestreaming events.

Earlier this year, the livestreamer-singer duo was also accused in a US civil case of using online casino money to pay for automated streams to artificially inflate Drake’s royalties and streams on music platforms.

In a similar case highlighted by the US Department of Justice, an indictment unsealed in April revealed that Gannon Ken Van Dyke, a U.S. Army soldier, was charged with unlawful use of confidential government information for personal gain, theft of nonpublic government information, commodities fraud, wire fraud, and making an unlawful monetary transaction. These charges were announced after the soldier allegedly used sensitive classified information about the planning and execution of the US military operation to capture Nicolás Maduro, called “Operation Absolute Resolve,” to make wagers on the prediction marketplace.

Elsewhere, according to a May report by data analytics firm Bubblemaps, nine Polymarket accounts flagged as potentially using non-public information gained more than $2.4 million by making bets on pivotal US military actions in the war with Iran.

Polymarket worked with 3 groups of social media producers to increase visibility: Report

Polymarket’s billionaire founder, Shayne Coplan, reportedly told the growth team to make the company impossible to ignore on the internet, two people familiar with the claims told The Wall Street Journal. The US outlet’s investigation further found that the platform was targeting three groups of social media producers to attain viral fame.

These include: streamers or online influencers, who bring up Polymarket or even trade during live video streams that may last for hours on Twitch and Kick; creators, who are mostly college-age SNS users making short videos of themselves talking about the platform or placing trades; and clippers or people across the world, mostly teens in Asia, redistributing videos from streamers and creators.

As per the WSJ’s investigation, Polymarket is availing the help of a marketing firm called Virality to manage the third group of social media producers. The report further suggested that the campaign is aimed at Americans. Citing instructional materials, the WSJ investigation reported that clippers were only paid by Polymarket if at least 60% of their audience was in the US.

As the platform publicly detaches itself from advertisements, a WSJ review of nearly 20,000 messages from a chat group for Polymarket’s online content-creating contractors and other instructional documents and videos cited by the news outlet indicated that Virality laid out instructions about clippers’ social media posts being made to appear “personal and organic.”

As per the WSJ, one Virality employee is believed to have urged a group of clippers in a reported group chat to remove ‘Polymarket’ from their account names and rename them.

“Continuing to use it will violate our guidelines and may lead to submission rejection. Not even ‘poly’ is allowed so change it as well,” the purported message stated, according to the WSJ.

Although not all videos redistributed by clippers pick up on social media, the WSJ stated that Polymarket works with many such social media producers so that one of their videos eventually goes viral. Analytics provider Tubular suggested that the platform’s viral clipping campaign has amassed more than 140 million views across SNS channels, including TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube.

Some creators named in WSJ’s investigative report even claimed that they were required to send the finished videos to Polymarket before uploading them online. If they didn’t seem engaged enough or showed signs of overt promotion, the platform asked them to be shot again, according to the US news outlet.

Social media giants respond

A TikTok US spokesperson told The Wall Street Journal that quite a few accounts identified in the outlet’s investigation, and other such accounts, had already been restricted for violating the company’s rules.

In light of the report being published over the weekend, a YouTube spokesperson also told the WSJ that the SNS giant may take legal action against creators and brands that don’t comply with legal obligations.

Similarly, a Meta official told the Murdoch family-controlled outlet that the platform requires creators to disclose if they are being paid to promote a product. However, as of now, the Mark Zuckerberg-led tech giant couldn’t confirm whether any such content violated its policies. Moreover, the company has yet to independently verify whether creators named in the reported investigation had been paid by Polymarket.