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How Polymarket Made Fake Bets Go Viral

7/6/202622 min

Hundreds of social media videos showed people hitting it big on Polymarket. But it turns out, none of it was real. WSJ’s Caitlin Ostroff and Katherine Long report on their investigation into a fake viral marketing campaign. Ryan Knutson hosts.

Further Listening:

- Insiders Are Cashing In on Prediction Markets

- How Betting on U.S. Politics Is Getting Big

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Clips

Everything Was Fake
Poimarket URL Epiphany
Almost Nobody Wins
Teenage Clippers in Asia

Transcript preview

First 90 seconds

  1. Speaker 1· Soundbite0:00

    [suspenseful music] Bro, what? Will Trump say Barack Hussein Obama this week? 25%. Bro, he has to.

  2. Ryan Knutson· Host0:12

    There are these videos you might have seen on TikTok or Instagram. They all follow the same kinda pattern. There's often someone who looks like a college student on their computer, looking at the betting site Polymarket.

  3. Katherine Long· Guest0:25

    They have tens of thousands of dollars, maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars in their Polymarket account. They place a bet.

  4. Ryan Knutson· Host0:32

    The bets often seem trivial, like will Donald Trump say a certain word by a certain day, and the people in the videos make it seem like you're being let in on a secret.

  5. Speaker 1· Soundbite0:41

    Bro, what? Will Trump say hat this week? 35%. Bro, this is crazy.

  6. Katherine Long· Guest0:48

    They press the, the buy button, confetti explodes across their screen. Then the camera cuts to them in front of a television. They're watching Donald Trump give a speech.

  7. Speaker 1· Soundbite0:58

    [laughs] He'll take other things, but not a free hat.

  8. Ryan Knutson· Host1:00

    [laughs] There it is. It happened. Trump said, "Hat."

  9. Katherine Long· Guest1:04

    They jump up. They scream with joy. They're so excited. They've just won money.

  10. Speaker 1· Soundbite1:08

    Yes, yes.

  11. Ryan Knutson· Host1:09

    Our colleague, Katherine Long, has been covering prediction markets, along with data reporter Caitlin Ostroff. And in the videos, these people will make winning look easy. Here's Caitlin.

  12. Caitlin Ostroff· Guest1:20

    They purport to make tens of thousands, sometimes more, of dollars, and for college students, that is an insane amount of money.

  13. Ryan Knutson· Host1:29

    Yeah,

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