US senators urge CFTC probe Polymarket over ‘deceptive marketing’

Senators John Curtis and Adam Schiff are concerned about the CFTC’s enforcement ability after a “troubling” report on Polymarket’s advertising.

A bipartisan pair of US senators has called on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to investigate the prediction market platform Polymarket after it reportedly paid social media influencers to make videos of fake bets.

Republican Senator John Curtis and Democratic Senator Adam Schiff sent a letter to CFTC Chair Mike Selig on Thursday, saying they were concerned Polymarket “used deceptive marketing tactics to promote gambling-style products to US audiences.”

“If accurate, these allegations are deeply troubling and demand immediate scrutiny from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission,” they wrote.

The letter comes after The Wall Street Journal reported on June 20 that Polymarket paid influencers to film fake trades on websites resembling its platform and that many creators didn’t disclose that Polymarket paid them.

The Journal said it reviewed over 1,100 videos and found that 70% featured fake bets amounting to nearly $2 million.

In response to the report, a Polymarket spokesperson told Cointelegraph earlier this week that it was “conducting a comprehensive audit of active promotional content to ensure it complies with our standards, as well as applicable regulatory and legal disclosure requirements.”

The letter also came ahead of reports in the Journal and CNBC on Friday that the CFTC was investigating Polymarket.

CNBC reported, citing a person familiar with the inquiry, that the CFTC has an ongoing and extensive investigation into Polymarket, but the timeline for when the investigation began was not shared.

Polymarket declined to comment on the letter or on the reported CFTC investigation.

Prediction markets have recently exploded in popularity and have seen billions of dollars in volume each month, with Senators Curtis and Schiff expressing their concerns about the CFTC’s ability to regulate the platforms.

“The CFTC has repeatedly asserted regulatory authority over prediction markets and event contracts,” the senators wrote. “Yet with content creators routinely portraying prediction markets as ‘free money,’ there is little basis for treating them differently from gambling.”