WSJ Investigation Finds Polymarket Paid Creators to Stage Fake Wins on Cloned Sites

A WSJ investigation found that Polymarket paid creators to film fake wins on cloned sites, with $1.9 million in wagers across 1,100 videos not real.

Ziv Chen

Last Updated: June 23, 2026 2:57 PM EDT • 2 minute read

Pictured: Polymarket logo appears in this illustration as we look at the WSJ into the company staging fake wins. Photo by REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

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A Wall Street Journal (WSJ) investigation published over the weekend found that Polymarket paid dozens of mostly college-age social media creators to film themselves placing bets and collecting winnings on replica versions of its website, with none of the nearly $1.9 million in wagers shown across more than 1,100 videos being real.

The WSJ reviewed 1,105 clips from 10 creators posted between last December and this past May. Roughly 778 of them showed bets being placed, all filmed on counterfeit copies of the platform rather than the live exchange. One fake domain, "poiymarket.com," was built to pass for the actual site when its lowercase "i" was rendered in uppercase.

In 118 of the videos, creators reacted to fabricated winnings totaling close to $900,000. The same trades on the real platform would have resulted in losses exceeding $166,000. One clip cited by the WSJ showed a college student claiming a $100,000 win on a market that President Donald Trump would say "McDonald's" in January. On-chain records show more than 50 accounts placed in the actual market, and all lost.

Creators were paid between $2,000 and $3,000 per month and instructed not to disclose the arrangement. A marketing contractor coordinated the operation, which included a network of amplifier accounts designed to make the content look organic.

The campaign targeted American users despite Polymarket, one of the biggest prediction market apps, being barred from operating in the US following a 2022 Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) settlement. The content has accumulated more than 140 million views.

Polymarket said it would audit its promotional materials in response to the report. A separate earlier investigation found the company's chief marketing officer used a personal PayPal account to funnel at least $350,000 to creators who promoted the platform without labeling those posts as paid advertising.

Polymarket's trading volume slides for a second straight month

The fake-win campaign surfaced as Polymarket's actual trading figures have been moving in the wrong direction. According to on-chain data from Dune Analytics, volume on Polymarket's international platform fell to just under $7.1 billion in May.

This is down from just over $9 billion in April. Both months came in below the March peak of $10.5 billion. That pullback follows a period of rapid expansion in which Polymarket's volume grew more than 850% between August 2025 and March 2026.

Rival Kalshi recorded more than $17.9 billion in May volume, roughly 2.5 times Polymarket's international total for the same period.

Monthly active users on Polymarket's international platform also contracted, falling from more than 780,000 in March to under 650,000 in May.

Polymarket's US-based, CFTC-regulated exchange did show improvement. Volume there climbed from $1.26 billion in April to $1.77 billion in May. That figure, however, remains a fraction of the international platform's total and well short of what Kalshi is generating overall.

Written by:
Ziv Chen

Ziv has over two decades of experience in the igaming and sports betting industry, having served in senior marketing and business development positions with both B2C and B2B companies, including Playtech and Microgaming. In 2019, Ziv decided to pursue his passion for writing and became a fulltime industry journalist, covering casino, sports, and gambling business news. He’s specialties include casino games and technology, US state gambling regulation, company performance, as well as gambling affiliates and marketing. As a Pitt graduate, Ziv is a diehard fan of all Pittsburgh sports teams, with the Steelers at the top of the list. In his free time, he enjoys reading crime fiction, biographies (mainly of sports personalities, but not only) and American history. Ziv’s Favorite quote: “We're going to pursue perfection, knowing full well we won't catch it, but we're going to relentlessly chase it," Mike Tomlin, Pittsburgh Steelers Head Coach.