Polymarket, the crypto-based prediction market that signed a high-profile exclusive deal with the UFC last year, is facing serious questions after a Wall Street Journal investigation found the company ran a marketing campaign built on fake bets, dummy websites, and undisclosed paid promotions targeting American users, despite being banned from operating in the US since 2022.
Polymarket and the UFC
TKO Group Holdings, the parent company of the UFC, announced a multi-year partnership with Polymarket in November 2025, making it the official and exclusive prediction market partner of both the UFC and Zuffa Boxing. As part of the deal, Polymarket’s prediction odds were integrated into live UFC broadcasts through what the organisations called a “fan prediction scoreboard,” showing real-time market activity as fights progressed.
TKO Executive Chair and CEO Ari Emanuel framed the collaboration as turning passive viewers into active participants, while Polymarket founder and CEO Shayne Coplan described the product as something users could “buy and sell, buy and sell as the momentum swings” during fights. The partnership also extended to Zuffa Boxing, which launched in January 2026, with Polymarket featuring in arena activations, social media content, and a co-branded post-event series.
What the WSJ Found
Published on June 22, 2026, the Wall Street Journal investigation reviewed more than 1,100 videos made by over 100 creators who were paid by Polymarket. In 70% of those videos, creators appeared to place bets, but not on the real Polymarket site. The company had built near-identical dummy versions of its platform where creators could simulate trades without spending money, then film themselves appearing to win.
Around 10% of the videos went further, using outdated footage or fabricated headlines to imply creators had won bets that, when traced back, they had actually lost. The WSJ calculated the videos showed creators winning almost $900,000 in total, but the actual outcome of those same positions would have resulted in losses exceeding $166,000.
The campaign generated roughly 140 million views across major platforms. Most of that reach was engineered deliberately: a marketing contractor working with Polymarket recruited thousands of low-wage social media users to repost the creator videos from sockpuppet accounts with no obvious connection to the brand. These “clippers” were instructed to avoid having “Polymarket” or “poly” in their usernames to keep posts looking organic, and were only paid if at least 60% of their audience was US-based.
Polymarket has been barred from offering its international platform to US users since 2022, when it settled an enforcement action with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) for operating an unregistered derivatives exchange and paid a $1.4 million civil penalty. The viral campaign, according to the WSJ, was specifically designed to build American awareness of a platform Americans were legally blocked from using.
Adin Ross and the Insider Trading Angle
Among the creators paid to promote Polymarket was Adin Ross, a 25-year-old streamer with a large following. The WSJ reported he received a multi-million dollar deal from Polymarket. Polymarket and its marketing contractor reportedly paid to amplify dozens of clips featuring Ross, including at least one in which he discussed how easy it would be to use inside information, such as knowing when an album by rapper Drake would be released, to trade on the platform.
CEO Shayne Coplan had previously described concerns about insider trading on Polymarket as “outlandish and baseless” and the company recently added an integrity page to its website stating that “insider trading is strictly prohibited”. The WSJ found at least 18 other videos Polymarket paid to promote that discussed insider trading opportunities.
Company Response and Regulatory Fallout
In response to the investigation, Polymarket said it was “committed to maintaining accurate, fair, and transparent markets” and announced it would audit its active promotional content. After journalists began contacting creators, many added “@polymarket partner” disclosures to their profiles, and Polymarket shut down the replica sites. TikTok and YouTube began restricting accounts linked to the network over disclosure violations.
A CFTC spokeswoman responded to the WSJ’s reporting by saying prediction markets should be brought onshore where they can be more effectively policed. The FTC declined to comment. Under US advertising law, brands are required to be truthful about what they are promoting, and commodities law bars deceptive and misleading practices in the prediction market space.
The scandal lands at a difficult moment for Polymarket commercially. The company spent roughly $112 million to acquire QCX LLC, a CFTC-registered exchange, as part of its strategy to legally re-enter the US market. The CFTC issued a no-action letter in late 2025 covering some of QCX’s operations, representing a step toward full US relaunch. Meanwhile, competitor Kalshi, which is regulated in the US, has reportedly pulled ahead on trading volume, tightening the competitive pressure on Polymarket.
The UFC deal was clearly part of a push to build a mainstream American profile. With 700 million fans worldwide and one of the most-watched live sports products in the US, the UFC gave Polymarket the kind of reach that few media partnerships can match. How that relationship develops, and whether TKO responds publicly to the WSJ investigation, remains to be seen.
A History of Scandals
This is far from the first time. Polymarket has accumulated a notable track record of insider trading incidents over the past two years. A French trader known as “Theo” placed roughly $45 million in bets across four accounts on Donald Trump winning the 2024 presidential election, ultimately netting around $47 million. The scale of the positions triggered immediate suspicion of insider knowledge and prompted France’s gambling regulator, the ANJ, to open an investigation into Polymarket’s compliance with French gambling law. Polymarket blocked all French users by November 22, 2024, and said its own investigation found no evidence of manipulation. Two blockchain analysis firms separately identified potential wash trading in the same market.
Around 11 hours before the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize announcement, traders on Polymarket started aggressively buying contracts on Venezuelan opposition figure María Corina Machado at $0.08, driving the price to $1.00 by the time Oslo made the announcement, a 1,000%+ gain. The Norwegian Nobel Institute confirmed it was investigating whether confidential information had leaked, with three accounts collectively profiting around $90,000.
A trader identified as “bigwinner01” placed a large bet on Trump pardoning Binance founder Changpeng Zhao hours before the news broke, netting roughly $56,700 at a 199% return. The same wallet had reportedly also shorted Bitcoin ahead of Trump’s tariff announcements, earning an estimated $160 million, earning the nickname “Trump Insider” on-chain.
A trader using the alias AlphaRaccoon correctly predicted 22 out of 23 Google Year in Search trending terms, winning approximately $1 million in 24 hours. In May 2026, a Google employee named Michele Spagnuolo was charged, he had access to confidential search data and used it to place bets he could not realistically lose.
OpenAI fired an employee after an internal inquiry found they had used confidential company information to trade on Polymarket and Kalshi. Blockchain analytics firm Unusual Whales identified 77 positions across 60 wallets as potential insider trades tied to OpenAI product launches going back to March 2023.
A special forces soldier named Gannon Ken Van Dyke was indicted by the DOJ in April 2026 for using classified military intelligence to place bets on Maduro’s capture, turning $32,000 into over $400,000 in profit. He reportedly placed around 13 bets between December 27, 2025 and January 26, 2026.
By May 2026, the House Oversight Committee had opened a formal probe into both Polymarket and Kalshi, with Committee Chair James Comer citing the pattern of incidents and calling for new legislation. Polymarket responded in March and April 2026 by tightening its rules and rolling out new surveillance and monitoring tools. So the Adin Ross insider trading promotion flagged in the WSJ investigation this week sits on top of an already lengthy list.