Polymarket is caught in a major credibility crisis after a Wall Street Journal investigation revealed the platform paid creators to post deceptive videos showing them making lucrative bets that were completely fictional.
The scheme was brazen: creators filmed on "near-perfect copies" of the Polymarket website, showcasing trades and winnings that simply never happened. The platform then deployed a "social-media army" through a marketing contractor to amplify these videos across the internet.
Polymarket allegedly instructed creators not to disclose they'd been paid by the company. When journalists started asking questions, the creators scrambled — adding "@polymarket partner" to their bios after the fact.
Even one of the creators involved, college student Razeen Khan, who worked with Polymarket until March, acknowledged the operation's problems. His defence? He compared it to fast-food commercials that make burgers look better than they actually are. "We're depicting what actually happens," he said — a line that feels hollow when the "happens" part is entirely fabricated.
The WSJ analyzed 1,100 videos about Polymarket and reviewed instructional materials the company gave to creators. The breadth of this operation suggests this was systematic rather than the work of a rogue marketing team.
Polymarket's response was a statement saying it is "committed to maintaining accurate, fair, and transparent markets" and plans to audit its promotional content.
The prediction market space is already under intense regulatory scrutiny. Getting caught running a fake-video farm will not help their case with regulators or users who were supposed to trust the platform's legitimacy.
