Polymarket Accused of Paying Creators to Film Fake Betting Videos

According to Odaily, crypto prediction market platform Polymarket has been accused of paying dozens of creators, mostly of college age, to film betting videos on pages highly similar to its website, with some videos also displaying fake profits. A review of 1,105 videos posted by 10 creators since December found that approximately 70% of the videos contained betting content, and the nearly $1.9 million in bets shown were not real transactions. 

One video released in January showed college student George Makihara celebrating a $100,000 win from betting that Donald Trump would say "McDonald's" that month, but the footage was allegedly filmed two months in advance. Trump did not publicly utter the word that January, and over 50 real accounts betting on the same event on Polymarket all incurred losses. Some creators entered transactions on test pages, including the misspelled domain "poiymarket.com," which were allegedly built by Polymarket or used for engineering testing environments. 

In 118 videos, creators showcased nearly $900,000 in fictional gains, while these bets would have resulted in losses of over $166,000 based on real outcomes. Creators received approximately $2,000 to $3,000 per month in compensation and were asked not to disclose the collaboration arrangement. Polymarket stated that it is committed to maintaining accurate, fair, and transparent markets and plans to conduct a comprehensive audit of promotional content. (Decrypt)