The Wall Street Journal Exposes Polymarket’s “Fake Marketing”: Fabricated Profit Videos Targeted at U.S. Users
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The Wall Street Journal Exposes Polymarket’s “Fake Marketing”: Fabricated Profit Videos Targeted at U.S. Users
A prediction market platform whose core selling point is “on-chain transparency” has built its growth engine on fake transaction videos that cannot be verified on-chain.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: Claude, TechFlow
TechFlow Introduction: A Wall Street Journal investigation has uncovered that Polymarket paid social media influencers to film fake “winning” videos on counterfeit websites mimicking its official site. Of the 1,105 videos reviewed, approximately $1.9 million in displayed bets were entirely fabricated. The platform also paid influencer Adin Ross millions of dollars in promotional fees and hired low-cost overseas labor—its so-called “astroturfing army”—to target U.S. users with these videos—even though Polymarket has been banned from serving U.S. customers since 2022.
A prediction market platform whose core marketing claim is “on-chain transparency” built its growth engine on off-chain, unverifiable fake transaction videos.
According to a Wall Street Journal investigative report published on June 21, Polymarket systematically engaged dozens of social media creators to film deceptive trading videos on near-identical replicas of its official website, manufacturing an illusion of “effortless profit.” Journalists reviewed 1,105 videos posted by 10 creators between December 2025 and mid-May 2026 and found that roughly 70% showed betting activity—but none of the approximately $1.9 million in displayed wagers were real or executed on Polymarket’s actual platform.
Fake Websites, Fake Trades, Fake Wins: The Fraud Chain Behind 1,105 Videos
The Wall Street Journal’s investigation exposed a fully integrated marketing fraud system.
Polymarket and its marketing contractor Virality built counterfeit websites nearly indistinguishable from Polymarket’s official site, enabling creators to simulate trades and film videos. One such spoof domain reported by the Journal was “poiymarket.com”—substituting the uppercase letter “I” for the lowercase “L”—making it visually almost impossible to distinguish from the real URL.
Of the 1,105 videos reviewed by the Wall Street Journal, about 70% featured betting scenes—but all transactions occurred on the fake sites, with zero executed on Polymarket’s genuine platform. Roughly 10% employed even more egregious tactics: creators used outdated news footage or fabricated headline screenshots to imply they had won bets.
A notable example is a video posted in January by college student George Makihara, claiming he bet $1,000 on “Trump will publicly say ‘McDonald’s’ this month” and won $100,000. Yet the clip showing Trump uttering the word was two months old. The Journal verified Polymarket’s actual on-chain data and found that over 50 accounts wagered on that same event that month—and all lost.
Across 118 videos, creators showcased fictitious winnings totaling nearly $900,000. Had those same bets been placed in the opposite direction on Polymarket’s real platform, the actual losses would have exceeded $166,000.
Targeting U.S. Users—Despite Being Banned From Serving Americans Since 2022
The most sensitive aspect of this marketing scheme lies in audience targeting. Since reaching a settlement with the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in 2022, Polymarket has been prohibited from offering trading services to U.S. customers. While users may technically bypass restrictions via VPN, the platform itself is barred from marketing to Americans.
Yet internal guidance documents obtained by the Wall Street Journal show Virality explicitly instructed its network of “clippers”—low-paid social media users tasked with reposting and amplifying videos—that compensation would only be issued if at least 60% of their viewers were located in the United States. In an internal group chat, Polymarket’s marketing contractor wrote that clippers whose social media handles included “Polymarket” or “poly” would not receive payment.
According to analytics firm Tubular, these videos collectively garnered over 140 million views across TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram. Creators earned monthly salaries of roughly $2,000–$3,000—and prior to journalists’ inquiries, most had failed to disclose their paid partnership with Polymarket in their profiles.
Multi-Million-Dollar Deal With Adin Ross, Paid Promotion of Videos Discussing “Insider Trading”
Polymarket’s promotional spending extended far beyond college-age creators. According to the Wall Street Journal, the platform signed a multi-million-dollar marketing contract with 25-year-old influencer Adin Ross. Ross spends roughly half an hour per week browsing Polymarket during his livestreams and commenting on potential trading opportunities.
Polymarket and Virality included dozens of Ross’s videos in their paid promotion program. The Journal found that at least five of these videos discussed how to exploit insider information for trading on the platform—for instance, Ross suggested using advance knowledge of Drake’s new album release date to arbitrage markets.
More broadly, the Journal identified at least 19 paid-promoted videos discussing insider trading opportunities—a stark contrast to Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan’s prior public dismissal of insider trading allegations as “absurd and baseless.” Ross himself currently faces a federal RICO class-action lawsuit alleging deceptive promotion on the gambling platform Stake.us.
Two Marketing Scandals Within One Month—Regulatory Pressure Mounts
The Wall Street Journal’s investigation is not an isolated incident. On June 5, Politico reported that Polymarket’s Chief Marketing Officer Matthew Modabber transferred over $2.5 million via his personal PayPal account to more than 800 creators and influencers between January 2025 and February 2026—including at least $350,000 to content creators who directly promoted Polymarket. Approximately 24 identifiable influencers subsequently posted over 490 Polymarket-related posts on X without disclosing their paid relationships.
Meanwhile, regulatory and legal pressure on Polymarket continues to intensify. In May, the U.S. Department of Justice charged a Google software engineer with using corporate confidential information to earn roughly $1.2 million on Polymarket—the first-ever federal criminal prosecution of insider trading in a prediction market. In April, the DOJ also charged a U.S. Army sergeant with earning over $400,000 using classified intelligence on contracts linked to Polymarket. On June 21, on-chain tracking firm Lookonchain reported that three Polymarket wallets collectively profited $24.25 million on World Cup prediction markets and withdrew funds through the same Binance deposit address—raising strong suspicions of insider trading.
In its statement, Polymarket said it “remains committed to maintaining accurate, fair, and transparent markets” and pledged to conduct a full audit of all active promotional content. Yet for a platform whose foundational selling point is on-chain transparency, relying on unverifiable off-chain fake videos as its core growth strategy represents a fundamental assault on its very credibility.
Jason Trost, CEO of rival exchange Smarkets, commented: “The heart of any exchange lies in its order book—real, auditable by anyone. Regulated exchanges retain settlement records and are accountable to the CFTC precisely for this reason.”
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