A reported Commodity Futures Trading Commission investigation is widening the pressure on Polymarket, shifting attention from whether its event contracts are lawful to how the platform markets itself and handles compliance.
According to PYMNTS, the inquiry reaches into Polymarket’s marketing, consumer protection and compliance practices surrounding its products. The report said this comes more than four years after the CFTC settled an enforcement action against the company, then operating as Blockratize Inc., over unregistered event-based binary options contracts.
That 2022 case ended with a $1.4 million civil penalty, an order to wind down noncompliant markets and a directive to stop violating the Commodity Exchange Act.
In a June 25 letter to CFTC chairman Michael S. Selig, Senators John Curtis and Adam Schiff urged the agency to examine allegations that Polymarket used simulated trading websites, staged transactions and undisclosed paid influencers to promote prediction-market activity tied to its offshore platform.
The letter said Polymarket paid social-media creators to film trades on sites designed to resemble the live platform, even though the trades were not real. It also alleged that many creators did not disclose payment and that some videos used fake or misleading material to imply large winnings.
The Defiant reported that the senators’ letter cited Wall Street Journal findings that mostly college-aged creators were paid about $2,000 to $3,000 a month, that the campaign covered more than 1,100 videos from December 2025 to mid-May 2026, and that the wagers depicted totalled roughly $1.9 million. In 118 videos, creators celebrated about $900,000 in fabricated wins, while the corresponding positions would have lost more than $166,000 on the actual platform.
The same reporting said the senators also alleged that Polymarket hired overseas workers to help distribute the content to U.S. audiences. In a press release on Schiff’s Senate site, the lawmakers said content creators portraying prediction markets as “free money” left little basis for treating them differently from gambling, and they described the alleged public-facing conduct as regulatory arbitrage rather than a sober market.
Anderson Insights said the case raises broader questions about how prediction-market operators acquire customers, supervise third-party marketers and present products to retail users. It pointed to CFTC Rule 180.1, which bars manipulative or deceptive conduct, and said FTC endorsement principles may also matter when paid influencer relationships are involved.
The same analysis said compliance concerns now include documenting restrictions on prohibited U.S. access, detecting circumvention, supervising affiliates, reviewing promotional materials, monitoring paid creators and clearly labelling simulated trading. PYMNTS also noted that the CFTC is separately considering broader rules for prediction markets, including a June proposal to revise its public-interest review process for event contracts.
The senators asked for written responses by 10 July.
