Polymarket Paid Creators to Film Fake Wins on Clone Websites, WSJ Investigation Finds

Since Polymarket settled with the CFTC in January 2022 over off-exchange binary options violations, the company has been building toward a mainstream financial credibility pitch. This week, a Wall Street Journal investigation detailed what was running underneath that pitch the whole time.

The Wall Street Journal analyzed more than 1,100 videos posted across TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram. According to the Journal, none of the bets shown in those clips were real. Polymarket used near-perfect replica websites, one misspelled as "poiymarket.com", so creators could film themselves appearing to place and win trades without touching the live platform.

The numbers tell the story plainly. The Journal found that 118 of those videos showed creators celebrating wins totaling nearly $900,000. The same bets, had they been real, would have lost $166,000.

The Marketing Machine Behind It

According to reporting from Politico, republished by Business Insider and cited by Startup Fortune, Polymarket chief marketing officer Matthew Modabber used a personal PayPal account to send more than $2.5 million to over 800 people between January 2025 and February 2026. Politico identified at least 490 Polymarket posts on X without clear paid-promotion disclosures. Named recipients include Alex LoRusso, Brian Krassenstein, and Riley Gaines. According to Startup Fortune's reporting, this deliberate political spread made the campaign appear organic from multiple ideological directions simultaneously.

The Journal also reported that streamer Adin Ross had an alleged multimillion-dollar deal with Polymarket, and that the company and its marketing contractor, Virality, actively targeted Ross clips for amplification.

Creators were instructed not to disclose the paid relationship. According to TechCrunch, they only started adding "@polymarket partner" to their bios after the Journal began asking questions. After the Journal reached out, Polymarket also took down the spoofed domains it had used for filming.

Razeen Khan, a college student who worked with Polymarket until March, told TechCrunch the practice was like commercials that make fast food look better than it is: "We're depicting what actually happens." That defense does not hold up against FTC endorsement guidelines, which were updated in 2023 and explicitly require disclosure of any material connection between a creator and a company paying for promotion.

The Valuation Problem

Polymarket's trajectory adds dimension to the compliance question. According to Reuters, Intercontinental Exchange, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, agreed in October 2025 to invest up to $2 billion in Polymarket at an $8 billion valuation. The Guardian reported in April 2026 that Polymarket was in talks to raise at a valuation of up to $15 billion.

A company seeking institutional backing at those numbers was simultaneously running a manufactured social-proof campaign built on fake trades, clone websites, and undisclosed paid creators. Startup Fortune put the tension directly: "If your pitch is that markets reveal truth, you do not get to manufacture the crowd that supposedly proves your product works."

The Strongest Defense

Polymarket's defenders can argue that exaggerated marketing is industry-standard, that no live user funds were misused in the production of these videos, and that the campaign targeted brand awareness rather than specific investment decisions. Creator Razeen Khan's fast-food-commercial analogy reflects a genuine industry norm: demonstrations of products that show idealized outcomes happen in every consumer category. The argument is that sophisticated users who actually bet on Polymarket knew what they were doing, and that aspirational marketing does not constitute fraud.

That argument would carry more weight if the creators had disclosed the paid relationship, as FTC rules require. They did not, and Polymarket's own materials told them not to. The distinction between aspirational marketing and deceptive promotion is precisely that line.

Regulatory Exposure, Existing and Potential

Polymarket's regulatory history is not a blank slate. The 2022 CFTC settlement resulted in a $1.4 million civil penalty and a requirement to wind down noncompliant markets. According to CoinStats, the company has since acquired QCEX for $112 million, and CFTC records list QCX LLC d/b/a Polymarket US as a designated contract market, giving it a clearer path to a regulated U.S. return.

That path now runs directly through this investigation. Kentucky has already sued both Kalshi and Polymarket over alleged illegal sportsbook activity, according to CoinStats. Gaming industry groups are pressing the Senate to block sports prediction markets through legislation called the CLARITY Act.

No federal investigation into the marketing campaign has been announced as of June 21, 2026. The FTC has not publicly commented. Polymarket told TechCrunch it is "committed to maintaining accurate, fair, and transparent markets" and will conduct an audit of its promotional content.

What that audit produces, and whether the CFTC or FTC treats the undisclosed paid-creator campaign as a violation in a regulated-market context, is the unresolved question that will determine whether Polymarket's $15 billion valuation ambitions survive the month.