Polymarket paid people to fake their bets on social media

The Wall Street Journal dug into Polymarket and found over 1,100 videos of people "placing bets" and celebrating wins that weren't really theirs. The company paid creators to film themselves — and most of those creators didn't say so in the videos.

At first glance, the clips look legit. Someone's holding their phone, laughing, showing off a win. But dig in and the seams show up. One clip has someone visiting "poiymarket.com" — the "i" and "o" swapped. The Journal confirmed with creators that Polymarket was paying them, even though the videos never mentioned it.

The pattern is old-school influencer marketing with a twist. Polymarket's whole pitch is that these markets are real, that the bets are real, and that the people talking about them are genuine. When the bets are fabricated and the voices are bought, the whole thing looks more like a stage play than a market.

Why this matters for us: When apps like Polymarket — and a lot of the crypto and fintech tools we've been told to trust — start padding their numbers with paid clips, la gente watching gets tricked into thinking something's hot when it's just hot air.