Polymarket · Donald Trump · Wall Street · U.S. · Ars Technica
Polymarket's viral videos caught people winning big, but the bets were fake
Compiled by KHAO Editorial — aggregated from 1 source. See llms.txt for citation guidance.
◌ Single Source
Polymarket paid dozens of social media users to film themselves making fake bets for a promotion that aimed to convince people they can strike it rich on the prediction market, according to a Wall Street Journal investigation published on Saturday.
Key facts
- Those 118 videos showed creators winning almost $900,000, but the bets in reality would have lost over $166,000, the report said
- The Journal said it reviewed 1,105 videos made by 10 creators and identified fake bets totaling $1.9 million
- The promotion reportedly targeted US residents by paying creators only when at least 60 percent of their viewers were in the United States
- Polymarket’s main platform technically hasn’t been available in the US since 2022, when the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) determined Polymarket was operating an illegally unregistered
Summary
“In its push to draw users to its unregulated platform, Polymarket has flooded social media with videos like Makihara’s, which appear genuine at first glance,” the article said. Makihara, a college student, posted a video in January “that showed him winning $100,000 on a wager that President Trump would publicly say the word ‘McDonald’s’ that month.” But trade data showed that no one on Polymarket won such a bet in January, according to the Journal. “Many of the videos share a template: The creators open Polymarket, place a bet, and frequently refer to their winnings as ‘free money.’ Dozens of social-media creators have posted videos with almost identical formats,” the Journal reported.