The paper reviewed 1,105 videos from 10 creators posted since December, found a wager in about 70%, and determined that none of the roughly $1.9 million in bets shown was real.
They include a clip posted in January, which shows college student George Makihara celebrating a $100,000 win on a bet that President Donald Trump would say "McDonald's" that month. The Journal found that the footage Makihara was responding to had been filmed two months earlier. Trump never said the word publicly that January, and more than 50 real accounts that placed the same bet on Polymarket all lost.
Creators were seen seemingly entering trades into dummy versions of the site, including one at the misspelled domain "poiymarket.com," the Journal reported. A source familiar with the matter revealed that the dummy site had been built by Polymarket, while other videos viewed by the paper indicated that the sites were test environments for the company’s engineers.
While most videos showed fake bets being placed, across 118 videos creators touted nearly $900,000 in fabricated winnings on bets that would actually have lost more than $166,000. Creators were paid roughly $2,000 to $3,000 a month and told not to disclose the arrangement, according to the report, with some only adding "@polymarket partner" to their bios following enquiries from the WSJ.
Polymarket told the WSJ it is "committed to maintaining accurate, fair, and transparent markets" and plans a comprehensive audit of its promotional content.
Polymarket in the U.S.The findings complicate Polymarket's push for mainstream credibility, as it faces pushback from state regulators in the U.S.
