George Makihara seemed to have found an easy path to riches. In one video the college student posted in January, he jumped with joy after betting that President Trump would say the word “McDonald’s” that month. The supposed payout: $100,000. But Trump never uttered the word publicly. And the clip came from two months earlier.
None of it was real. Makihara, who declined to comment when reached by reporters, formed part of a larger group of mostly college-age creators paid by Polymarket to film themselves placing bets and celebrating wins that never happened. The Wall Street Journal uncovered the operation after reviewing 1,105 videos, instructional materials given to the creators, and interviews with people who worked with the company.
Short clips. Long deception. The videos flooded TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. They showed traders raking in thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars. Viewers saw what looked like live action on Polymarket’s site. Excitement built. Comments rolled in. And the platform’s visibility soared.
But the sites in those videos were near-perfect copies. One used “poiymarket.com.” Buttons read “YES” and “NIR” instead of “NO.” Source data that appears on the actual platform was missing. Clues scattered throughout proved none of the trades occurred on the real exchange. The Wall Street Journal determined that across the sample, creators appeared to place bets totaling $1.9 million. Not one was genuine.
In 118 videos the creators reacted to wins amounting to nearly $900,000. Had those same positions been taken on the actual platform, they would have lost more than $166,000. The gap between appearance and outcome could hardly be wider.
Polymarket hired a marketing contractor to run the campaign. That firm assembled what it called a social-media army — streamers, creators, clippers. The contractor instructed the group to repost content from 10 specific Polymarket-aligned creators, including Makihara. Videos received review from Polymarket staff. Some were filmed inside the company’s New York office. One showed a bet on whether Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell would say “good afternoon.”
Creators earned $2,000 to $3,000 a month. Instructions told them not to disclose the payments. Only after journalists started asking questions did many add “@polymarket partner” to their bios. Razeen Khan, a creator who worked with the program until March, offered a defense. “We’re depicting what actually happens,” he said. “You’re still going to buy the burger.”
Haian Nguyen posted videos on Instagram showing wins of $60,000 or more. Lucas Nguyen appeared in others. Adin Ross featured in clips that touched on insider trading. After the Wall Street Journal reached out, some scrubbed their content. The contractor pushed the videos past 140 million views.
The tactics come at a delicate moment for Polymarket. The platform has been banned from serving U.S. users since 2022 after the Commodity Futures Trading Commission accused it of operating an unregistered exchange. It reincorporated in Panama. It later acquired a licensed entity and launched a CFTC-regulated U.S. app. Trading volume has climbed. Rival Kalshi competes for attention. Polymarket has pitched itself as transparent because every position lives on the blockchain.
Yet this marketing effort lived entirely off the ledger. The dummy sites carried no on-chain record. The bets carried no financial risk for the creators. The wins carried no actual profit. And the audience, many of them U.S. users the platform cannot legally serve, received a steady diet of apparent success stories.
One creator compared the videos to fast-food commercials that make burgers look better than they taste. The analogy reveals the intent. Show the fantasy. Drive the traffic. Let the platform handle the fine print.
Polymarket responded to the findings with a statement. The company said it remains “committed to maintaining accurate, fair, and transparent markets.” It added that it operates in a rapidly growing industry and constantly evaluates ways to improve audience trust. It plans to conduct a comprehensive audit of active promotional content. The firm has not commented further.
TechCrunch covered the revelations shortly after the Journal’s story broke, noting the near-perfect copies of the site and the social-media army deployed to amplify the clips. Engadget and The Verge picked up the same details, highlighting how over 70% of the reviewed videos featured apparent bets that were staged.
CoinDesk reported on the contractor’s push to target U.S. users despite the ban, framing the episode as part of a broader trend where companies hire clipping services to cut through social noise. On X, users reacted with a mix of outrage and resignation. Some called it expected marketing hype. Others saw damage to the credibility of prediction markets overall.
The campaign raises larger questions about trust in platforms that trade on real-world outcomes. Polymarket built its brand on the idea that markets reveal truth better than polls or pundits. Yet the videos manufactured an image of effortless profit that the underlying data did not support. For more than half the supposed winning bets examined, the positions would have produced losses in reality.
Regulatory scrutiny could follow. The CFTC has pursued cases involving simulated trades and deceptive marketing in the past. The Trump administration has signaled a lighter touch toward crypto innovation. Even so, outright fabrication of trading activity sits in a gray area that enforcement agencies have shown willingness to examine.
Polymarket’s growth continued even as the videos circulated. Volume rose. Institutional interest appeared. The company positioned itself as a serious player. But the foundation of those early viral moments now carries cracks. Fake wins. Real questions.
Creators who participated received modest monthly payments for their work. The platform gained millions of impressions. The audience received a distorted picture of what trading on Polymarket actually involves. Some may have signed up expecting similar results. Others simply enjoyed the spectacle.
The audit Polymarket promised will examine current promotional content. Whether it reaches back to these videos remains unclear. The contractor’s guidelines, the dummy site templates, the approval process — all of it formed a system designed to look organic while remaining carefully controlled.
Prediction markets depend on accurate information and participant confidence. When the marketing that brings in new users relies on staged success, that confidence erodes. The numbers tell part of the story. $1.9 million in displayed bets. Zero executed on the real platform. Nearly $900,000 in celebrated wins that would have produced six-figure losses.
Makihara’s Trump video. Nguyen’s $60,000 celebration. The Powell “good afternoon” wager. Each clip contributed to a narrative that real traders on Polymarket routinely cashed in. The truth proved more complicated. And less glamorous.
As the industry matures, such practices may invite tighter rules. Or they may simply become accepted as the cost of standing out in crowded social feeds. For now, the videos have been flagged, the stories updated, and the conversation shifted from apparent wins to underlying methods.
Polymarket says it wants to earn trust. The audit offers one path forward. Transparency about past campaigns could offer another. But the gap between the viral image and the on-chain record will linger. Burgers may look better in commercials. Prediction markets, however, trade in outcomes. Those cannot be staged without consequence.
Polymarket’s Fake Wins: How Paid Videos Masked Reality on the Prediction Market first appeared on Web and IT News.