US Senators push CFTC for probe into Polymarket’s influencer marketing amid reports

Two US senators are pressing federal regulators to look into Polymarket, after reporting emerged that the prediction market company paid influencers to stage fake betting videos for social media.

Senator John Curtis, a Republican, and Senator Adam Schiff, a Democrat, addressed their letter to Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Chair Mike Selig on Thursday. The senators said they were troubled by allegations that Polymarket “used deceptive marketing tactics to promote gambling-style products to US audiences,” adding, “If accurate, these allegations are deeply troubling and demand immediate scrutiny from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.”

Their letter traces back to a Wall Street Journal investigation published June 20, which found that Polymarket had compensated influencers to record themselves making trades on lookalike websites built to resemble the real platform, often without disclosing the payment arrangement to viewers. The Journal’s review covered 1,105 videos from 10 different creators spanning December 2025 through mid-May. Roughly 70% of those videos showed a bet being placed, and none of those wagers, totaling close to $1.9 million, were genuine.

Polymarket responded to the Journal’s findings by saying it is “committed to maintaining accurate, fair, and transparent markets” and indicating it would conduct a full audit of its promotional material. A company spokesperson echoed that stance in comments to Cointelegraph earlier in the week, saying Polymarket 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.”

Around the same time the senators’ letter went public, separate reporting from the Journal and CNBC on Friday indicated the CFTC had already begun looking into Polymarket independently. Curtis and Schiff specifically asked Selig to confirm whether such an investigation is underway and whether the marketing practices uncovered by the Journal cross any lines under CFTC regulations or federal law.

The senators framed their request against the backdrop of prediction markets’ rapid growth, with trading volume on these platforms now reaching into the billions each month. They questioned whether the CFTC’s current approach adequately accounts for how the products are being marketed to ordinary users. “The CFTC has repeatedly asserted regulatory authority over prediction markets and event contracts,” they wrote. “Yet with content creators routinely portraying prediction markets as ‘free money,’ there is little basis for treating them differently from gambling.” The senators went further, arguing, “These contracts are not in the public interest and should not be treated as derivative products with hedging value.”

This isn’t the first time the CFTC’s authority over prediction markets has come under the microscope. The agency, under Selig’s leadership since his appointment as chair in December, has been steadily working to assert and defend its jurisdiction over the fast-growing sector.