Polymarket accused of paying creators to film fake betting videos.

Odaily Odaily reports that the cryptocurrency prediction market platform Polymarket has been accused of paying dozens of creators, mostly college-aged, to film betting videos on a page highly similar to its website, with some videos showcasing 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 shown bets of approximately $1.9 million were not real transactions. One video, released in January, showed college student George Makihara celebrating winning $100,000 after betting that Donald Trump would say "McDonald's" that month. However, the footage was alleged to have been filmed two months in advance; Trump did not publicly utter the word that January, and more than 50 real accounts on Polymarket betting on the same event lost money. Some creators entered trades on test pages, including one with a misspelled domain name "poiymarket.com," which was alleged to have been built by Polymarket or used as an engineering test environment. In 118 videos, creators showcased nearly $900,000 in fictitious earnings, while these bets would have resulted in losses exceeding $166,000 in real terms. Creators were paid approximately $2,000 to $3,000 per month and were required to not disclose their partnership arrangements; Polymarket stated that it is committed to maintaining an accurate, fair, and transparent marketplace and plans to conduct a full audit of promoted content. (Decrypt)