Polymarket, a prediction-betting platform that was covering the presidential race odds recently is under scrutiny. The platform had been recruiting US-based influencers to promote election betting on its site, despite being barred from allowing US citizens to place wagers. According to Bloomberg report, Armand Saramount, Polymarket’s senior director of growth, reached out to influencers in September, offering sponsorship deals.
Polymarket Offered Paid Sponsorship
The sponsorship was handed over to a range of pages on Instagram, from meme pages to financial accounts. The only criteria to be eligible for the sponsorship was to have a great number of followers. While posting for Polymarket, the common hashtags used by these influencers were #PMPartner and #PolymarketPartner.
A few of the accounts did not post disclaimer stating that US traders are prohibited along with their posts. This raised concerns that such negligence might have caused users to find other ways to place their bets.
Polymarket had recently paid a hefty fine of $1.4 million to Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) for operating without proper licensing and such user activities would violate agreement between the two.
Polymarket paid for the Ads
The company has spent $269,000 on Facebook and Instagram ads targeting the US audience. The ads claimed the betting platform to be “the most accurate way to track & forecast the election.” Critics argued that most of the betting platform user base is dominated by the crypto-traders. Their involvement in the betting may give out false results as they would obviously vote for Trump, challenging their “the most accurate way to track & forecast the election” claim.
Was it really for increasing the Traffic over the Website?
“We’ve reached out to influencers on both sides of the aisle to promote our data and drive traffic and eyeballs to polymarket.com, where 99% of visitors consume news and never place a trade,” said a Polymarket spokesperson who also confirmed that influencers were paid to post regarding the election odds. The spokesperson then also emphasized that they did not intend to encourage trades from U.S. visitors but only wanted increase the traffic to the site through these sponsorships.
However, some influencers report being encouraged to create engaging content without restrictions, raising a dispute.
Was the betting platform actually paying the influencers to drive traffic over the website or was there a hidden agenda to get the US citizen to give in and find ways to place their bet? Such situation raises questions about Polymarket’s compliance with US regulations and its potential impact on the election.
