WSJ: Polymarket paid creators to post fake betting videos

Prediction market platform Polymarket paid dozens of content creators to film videos of themselves placing bets on a fake version of its site, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported. One creator posted a video claiming to have won $100,000 by betting that President Trump would say "McDonald's" during an official appearance in a specific month. In reality, around 50 accounts that made the same bet on the actual site all lost money. According to a WSJ analysis, the promotional videos featured a total of about $1.9 million in bets, none of which were real trades. The roughly $900,000 in "profits" portrayed by the creators would have actually resulted in a loss of over $166,000 if the bets had been placed for real. Polymarket has been banned from operating in the U.S. since 2022, but the creators were paid to encourage viewers to access the platform using a virtual private network (VPN). Meanwhile, Polymarket announced it would conduct an audit of all its promotional content.