Headline Roundup • June 23rd, 2026
WSJ Investigation Claims Polymarket Ran Secret Influencer Campaign With Fake Winning Bets
Summary from the AllSides News Team
The Wall Street Journal (Center bias) has published an investigation in which it claims online gambling platform Polymarket ran a deceptive advertising scheme to make it look like bettors won big on wagers that never actually existed.
The Investigation: The Journal alleged Polymarket paid "dozens of mostly college-age creators" to "film themselves making fake trades and sometimes scoring fake wins." It wrote, "The Journal reviewed 1,105 videos posted by 10 creators endorsed by Polymarket's contractor between December 2025 and mid-May. In 70% of the videos, the creators placed a bet. Clues in the videos showed that none of the bets—$1.9 million in total—were real. Most videos simply showed the bet being placed, but 118 showed the creators reacting to outdated footage or fake headlines suggesting they'd won. These 118 videos depicted creators winning almost $900,000. In reality, those bets would have lost more than $166,000."
Polymarket's Response: After The Journal published its investigation, Polymarket told CBS News (Lean Left) that it began an audit of its promotional content.
For Context: Media outlets and speculative onlookers have raised concerns about insider trading on the platform in recent months. In March, a $580 million trade of crude oil futures was placed minutes before President Trump announced a pause on strikes on Iranian energy infrastructure. A previous analysis from The New York Times (Lean Left) found over 150 Polymarket accounts had placed bets predicting the US strike on Iran the Friday before it happened. Polymarket has previously said insider trading is prohibited and updated its terms in March to prohibit trades based on illegal tips or "stolen confidential information."
RELATED: The Insight: The Rise of Prediction Markets
How The Media Covered It: The Journal's investigation was not widely covered by mainstream sources across the spectrum. In addition to CBS News, which covered the story once Polymarket told it that it was investigating, AllSides found news coverage from The Verge (Lean Left) and Fortune (Center). Bloomberg (Lean Left) and New York Magazine (Left) published opinions. AllSides did not find coverage from the right.
Written by the AllSides staff (of humans). Learn more. Support our mission. Suggest an improvement to this summary.
Featured Coverage of this Story
Polymarket told CBS News that it is auditing its promotional content after a Wall Street Journal investigation found the prediction market paid online content creators to produce videos that the newspaper said falsely showed customers winning a total of $1.9 million.
The WSJ's findings, published Saturday, are based on interviews with social media content creators and an analysis of more than 1,100 TikTok videos from 10 creators. Most of the videos featured phony trades executed on dummy sites designed to resemble Polymarket, according to the Journal, which said the company's...
Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer; Photos: Polymarket; Getty Images
Americans understand by now that what you see in an ad is not necessarily what you get when you buy the thing in the ad. Rarely does the burger taste as good as it looks on TV. But in pursuit of rapid growth during a period of ultra-industry-friendly federal regulation, prediction markets are exploiting the gap between the ad and the product in bold, perhaps legally shaky new ways.
In his videos, George Makihara appears to have a lucrative side hustle making bets on Polymarket.
In January, the college student posted a video that showed him winning $100,000 on a wager that President Trump would publicly say the word "McDonald's" that month.
The bet was one of 145 that Makihara appeared to place on Polymarket's website between January and mid-May, based on his videos—bets adding up to almost $410,000.
But none of those bets were real, according to a Wall Street Journal investigation.
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