CFTC reopens probe into Polymarket after deceptive promotion allegations

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission reopened scrutiny of Polymarket after Senators John Curtis, a Utah Republican, and Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, urged the agency to investigate allegations that the prediction-market platform paid creators to make deceptive promotional videos. The renewed attention brings the company back before the federal regulator that oversees event contracts, after last year the commission overruled its enforcement lawyers and shelved a separate inquiry into whether Polymarket was illegally serving U.S. customers.

Creators were paid to produce videos that portrayed fake trades and winnings totaling $1.9 million, and Polymarket said it was auditing its promotional content. Polymarket’s annualized revenue has surpassed $1 billion, while its 2024 U.S. election markets helped push election-related betting volume above $2 billion by mid-October 2024.

Polymarket has already been in the CFTC’s sights. In January 2022, the commission settled charges against Blockratize, Inc., the company doing business as Polymarket, and ordered it to pay a $1.4 million civil monetary penalty. The agency also required Polymarket to block U.S. users after finding that it had offered off-exchange event-based binary options contracts without registering as a designated contract market or swap execution facility.

In February 2026, the CFTC’s Enforcement Division issued an advisory on prediction markets and insider trading after recent cases involving misuse of nonpublic information, and in May the House Oversight Committee opened its own inquiry into insider-trading risks on prediction-market platforms.