The prediction-betting platform Polymarket allegedly paid online creators to post deceptive videos showing them winning rich bets - bets that in fact never happened. The investigation is by the Wall Street Journal, and the picture it paints is a textbook example of how false trust is manufactured online.

According to the paper, 1,100 videos for Polymarket were analysed, along with the instructions the company gave its creators. Many of the videos were filmed on "near-perfect copies" of the Polymarket site, showing transactions and winnings that weren't real. A whole "social-media army", hired through a marketing contractor, then spread those clips further.

The most interesting part is the cover-up. The company, the paper claims, told creators not to state that they were paid - until journalists started asking questions, after which the creators hastily added "@polymarket partner" to their profiles. One of them, a student named Razin Khan, compared the practice to fast-food adverts: "We show what actually happens." The comparison says more than he perhaps intended - we all know how much a real burger resembles the one in the advert.

Polymarket replied that it is "committed to maintaining accurate, fair and transparent markets" and that it would carry out a review of its promotional content. Translation: we'll check what we did once we got caught. For a Balkan reader, used to paid commentators and staged stories, the point is simple - when a platform has to invent winners to draw in players, the question isn't whether the system works for them, but who it works against.