Polymarket paid mostly college-aged developers to make fake winning bets on copycat brands on its website. A Wall Street Journal investigation found that $1.9 million in bets shown on 1,105 videos were real.
The findings contradict the company’s previous claims. Polymarket implements real-time transactions on a public blockchain that anyone can read. His growth campaign relied on the opposite, trading on false websites that no book could verify.
How Polymarket Fake Bets Work
Polymarket real-time transactions run on the Polygon blockchain and are settled in USDC. Markets are made possible through the unlicensed UMA oraclewhere any one may claim or contest the result by posting a bond of $750. Every position is public.
Marketing activities were all from their books. Magazine he says reviewed 1,105 videos from 10 creators uploaded between mid-December and mid-May. About 70% showed betting, and none were real.
Another video showed a developer winning $100,000 after Trump appeared to quote McDonald’s in January. Trump didn’t say anything publicly that month, and the video was huge.
On the real market, public data shows more than 50 articles made that money, and all lost.
Many videos were filmed on sites like poiymarket.com, designed to showcase the real platform. For 118 movies, producers celebrated nearly $900,000 in fictional wins. The same bets would have lost more than $166,000.
Producers were paid $2,000 to $3,000 a month and were told not to disclose what they paid. The hiring company pushed the videos to over 140 million views. The model is similar to the argument to end the old market that dented user trust.
Risks During Polymarket’s Return to the US
Times are tough. US regulators fine Polymarket $1.4 million in 2022 for running an unregistered market and ordered to stop illegal trade.
The company was later re-established in Panama, with its headquarters it is said to be a shared law office which also worked with FTX.
Polymarket has won controlling the US market and now he wants to bring his change to the surface.
The fake campaign targeted American users, who could access offshore locations via VPN.
Questions of faith are not new. A separate analysis of the Journal is available many users lose moneyeven the videos sold for a simple profit.
Now to compete with he directed the race of KalshiPolymarket said it would review the ad.
That comment, which is changing how regulators view its push to land, could create the next phase of the forecast market’s competition.
A note Polymarket Accused of Using Fake Winning Bets to Promote Viral Growth appeared for the first time BeInCrypto.
