Internal videos show Polymarket trained creators on fake bets
Internal Polymarket training videos obtained by Semafor show marketing employee Tobin Tang instructing creators to make fake bets using fake money. The one-minute how-to video features Tang explaining the practice directly. The footage was published Friday. A separate report cited on Hacker News claims Polymarket paid creators to stage fake winning bets to lure U.S. users. Both reports surfaced July 24, 2026. The videos add documentary evidence to allegations that Polymarket used deceptive creator marketing.
The videos give regulators and litigants concrete evidence that Polymarket's marketing team knowingly deceived users. Tobin Tang's direct instructions on camera make this harder to dismiss as rogue contractor behavior than a written policy would. For the CFTC, which already faces bipartisan pressure over prediction-market oversight, footage of staged bets undercuts any claim that the platform's retail growth was organic. Congressional staff reviewing the Senate bill to ban sports event contracts now have a specific training practice to cite.
Polymarket's referrals of suspicious wallets and its EU gambling blocks already had it playing defense on multiple fronts; creator fakery adds a consumer-fraud vector that could attract FTC or state attorney general interest. Rivals like Kalshi, itself under insider-trading scrutiny, can draw a sharp contrast by opening its own marketing records. The first regulator to open a formal inquiry into the creator program will force every platform to audit its influencer terms.