Polymarket has been accused of paying for staged videos: fake bets and millions of views.
The decentralized prediction platform Polymarket has found itself at the center of a major scandal. As revealed during a journalistic investigation, the company systematically paid for the creation of fake videos that showed fictitious bets and winnings on clone websites. These materials were actively distributed on social media and used as an advertising tool to attract new users.
The Scheme with Fake Bets
Dozens of creators were involved in the scheme. An analysis of over 1,100 videos, as well as a study of internal instructions and interviews with content creators who worked with Polymarket, revealed the scale of the manipulation. Creators were paid between $2,000 and $3,000 monthly, while being strictly required not to disclose the fact of commercial collaboration. Exact copies of the original Polymarket website were used for filming, creating the illusion of real transactions.
Millions of Views and One Striking Example
A separate marketing agency handled the promotion of these videos. Between December and mid-May, 10 sponsored creators published 1,105 videos, which collectively garnered over 140 million views. One notable participant was student George Makihara. In January, he posted a video where he allegedly won $100,000 on a bet that Donald Trump would publicly say the word "McDonald’s." Calculations showed that from January to mid-May, Makihara demonstrated 145 bets in his videos totaling nearly $410,000 — none of which existed in reality.
Reaction and Consequences
After the information became public, many creators rushed to hide the compromising videos. Polymarket, for its part, removed the clone websites used to record the staged materials. Notably, earlier in May, analysts had already identified anomalous activity on the platform — 80 bets on U.S. military action against Iran with suspiciously high accuracy.
Expert opinion. This incident seriously undermines trust in Polymarket as an objective tool for market predictions. Using fake videos to create false hype is not just a marketing mistake but a direct manipulation of user perception. In the long term, such actions could lead to stricter regulation of the entire prediction market industry, as regulators will see this as unfair practices bordering on fraud.