On the record

We say the machine is built to keep you playing. On this page, we mostly stop talking — reporters, researchers, and regulators have been building the record themselves. Here is what they have published, each item credited to its publisher and linked to the original.

The winners in your feed

In June 2026, The Wall Street Journal reported that Polymarket paid content creators to post simulated trades — “fake wins,” in the Journal’s words — on clones of Polymarket’s website.¹ In the Journal’s companion video investigation, which analyzed 1,100 videos, its reporters said Polymarket had paid “clippers” to promote at least 19 videos discussing opportunities to use inside information or other tactics to manipulate markets.²

Politico reported that same month on a campaign by Polymarket to pay influencers to praise the platform’s accuracy.³ Three months earlier, The New York Times had put it in a headline: “Polymarket Says It Deals in Truth, but Its Social Feeds Are Filled With Falsehoods.”⁴

For context, the FTC’s Endorsement Guides — the agency’s guidance for influencer marketing generally — say endorsements “must be honest and not misleading,” and that a connection consumers wouldn’t expect “should be disclosed clearly and conspicuously,” usually including when “the endorser has been paid or given something of value to tout the product.”⁵ We run an accountability company; disclosure is, structurally, our favorite subject. To be clear: none of the reporting above describes any FTC finding or action, and we are not suggesting one — whether any given post complied is the FTC’s question to answer, not ours.

Who actually wins

In May 2026, The Wall Street Journal published an analysis under the headline “Why Almost Everyone Loses—Except a Few Sharks—on Prediction Markets.” Its finding: 0.1% of accounts net 67% of the profits on Polymarket, while more than 70% of users lose money.⁶

The category-level math — the numbers about the activity rather than any one platform — lives on our prediction-markets page, with its own sources.

The insider problem

The Economist put it in a February 2026 headline: “Prediction markets are rife with insider betting.”⁷ At least one platform has said so itself — NPR reported that Kalshi disclosed enforcement cases against accounts suspected of trading on confidential information, including a video editor for a prominent YouTuber, whom Kalshi fined and suspended — and that Kalshi says it opened 200 insider-trading investigations in the past year.⁸

The design problem is structural. When the contract is “will this happen?” and somebody, somewhere, helps decide whether it happens, the person on the other side of your bet may already know the answer. You cannot out-research the person in the room.

The volume that wasn’t

In 2021, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission ordered Coinbase Inc. to pay $6.5 million; the CFTC’s own press-release title carries the reason: “False, Misleading, or Inaccurate Reporting and Wash Trading.”⁹ Context from the same release: the CFTC described the order as “filing and settling charges,” and attributed the wash trading itself to “a former employee” on Coinbase’s GDAX platform, with Coinbase ordered to pay the penalty.⁹

Wash trading — trading with yourself so the market looks busier than it is — is illegal in most regulated markets. Researchers publishing through the National Bureau of Economic Research (“Crypto Wash Trading”) estimated that on the unregulated crypto exchanges they studied, wash trading averaged over 70% of reported volume.¹⁰ Volume is marketing: a busy-looking table is the oldest way a house fills seats.

The record in the courts

The “is this gambling?” question has moved into courtrooms. In March 2026, NBC News reported that a federal judge in Ohio ruled Kalshi’s sports prediction markets amount to acts of gambling that come under state regulation. A Kalshi spokesperson responded: “We respectfully disagree with the Court’s decision, which splits from a decision from a federal court in Tennessee just a few weeks ago, and will promptly seek an appeal.”¹¹ The same month, Wired reported that a Nevada court issued a 14-day restraining order barring Kalshi from offering event contracts on sports, elections, and entertainment there without gaming licenses — Kalshi told its Nevada customers, “We disagree with these restrictions, but as a law-abiding company, we’re following them.”¹²

State attorneys general have filed as well: Washington’s lawsuit alleges Kalshi’s platform violates the state’s Gambling Act and Consumer Protection Act,¹³ and Michigan’s attorney general filed a complaint of its own¹⁴ — allegations, at this writing, not judgments. Abroad, New Zealand’s Department of Internal Affairs says prediction markets are “caught by” its Gambling Act and “accordingly prohibited.”¹⁵ And the U.S. Senate changed its own rules to bar senators and staff from betting on prediction markets — a move Polymarket said it is “in full support of.”¹⁶

None of this settles what a court in your state will decide. It does settle that “is this gambling?” is now a live question in rooms where the answer carries consequences.

Why we keep this page

The wall described in the box up top is deliberate: claims live where the sources live, and app pages stay neutral. This page is the claims side of that wall — the public record, in one place, credited to the people who built it. When the record changes, the page changes.

And if the reporting above sounds like your last six months: Electric Nipple Clamps is an accountability app — you name one person you trust, and when you open a betting or speculation app on your watch list, they find out. How it works → The category-level math is on the prediction-markets and crypto pages.