$1.9M in Fake Bets Drove Polymarket Hype: WSJ - Decrypt

$1.9M in Fake Bets Drove Polymarket Hype: WSJ

Crypto prediction market platform Polymarket paid dozens of mostly college-age creators to film themselves placing fake bets, and sometimes faking wins, on near-identical copies of its website, according to a Wall Street Journal investigation published Saturday.

The paper reviewed 1,105 videos from 10 creators posted since December, found a wager in about 70%, and determined that none of the roughly $1.9 million in bets shown was real.

He filmed the exciting moment he won $100,000—except the bet wasn’t real. A flood of videos showing fake trades is fueling Polymarket’s hype machine. https://t.co/LEgqvIRGvb

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) June 21, 2026

They include a clip posted in January, which shows college student George Makihara celebrating a $100,000 win on a bet that President Donald Trump would say "McDonald's" that month. The Journal found that the footage Makihara was responding to had been filmed two months earlier. Trump never said the word publicly that January, and more than 50 real accounts that placed the same bet on Polymarket all lost.

Creators were seen seemingly entering trades into dummy versions of the site, including one at the misspelled domain "poiymarket.com," the Journal reported. A source familiar with the matter revealed that the dummy site had been built by Polymarket, while other videos viewed by the paper indicated that the sites were test environments for the company’s engineers.

While most videos showed fake bets being placed, across 118 videos creators touted nearly $900,000 in fabricated winnings on bets that would actually have lost more than $166,000. Creators were paid roughly $2,000 to $3,000 a month and told not to disclose the arrangement, according to the report, with some only adding "@polymarket partner" to their bios following enquiries from the WSJ .

Polymarket employs marketing firm Virality to manage the network of “clippers,” who the WSJ reported were only paid when at least 60% of their audience was based in the U.S. The prediction market was pushed offshore in January 2022, following a $1.4 million settlement with the CFTC over failing to obtain proper registration in the U.S. In November 2025, Polymarket received approval to re-enter the U.S. market through a CFTC-licensed exchange , Polymarket US, though its main site remains geoblocked for U.S. users.

Polymarket told the WSJ it is "committed to maintaining accurate, fair, and transparent markets" and plans a comprehensive audit of its promotional content.

The findings complicate Polymarket's push for mainstream credibility, as it faces pushback from state regulators in the U.S.

The CFTC, which claims exclusive jurisdiction, has taken a permissive line under Chair Mike Selig, who has warned that pushing the industry offshore into "unregulated space" risks an FTX-style implosion and has knocked states for "regulating by litigation." Many are doing just that, casting event contracts as illegal gambling: Kentucky sued Polymarket and rival Kalshi this week over alleged unlicensed sports wagering, echoing earlier moves by Nevada and Arizona .

The Trump administration has responded forcefully, suing states including Illinois, Arizona and Connecticut to defend prediction markets from state regulation.

Democrats have raised separate alarms. Senator Elizabeth Warren has accused the CFTC of being "steamrolled" by the industry, citing a roughly 25% workforce cut and a drop in enforcement actions from 58 to 11 in a year, and tying favorable rulings to firms linked to President Trump and his family. Donald Trump Jr. is an investor in Polymarket and an adviser to both it and Kalshi. Selig has also faced bipartisan grilling in Congress over insider trading, war-related betting markets, and offshore venues like Hyperliquid.

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