Influencers quietly sold Polymarket’s odds for cash

paid influencer – A large set of X posts hyping Polymarket’s odds—often framed as urgent “breaking” updates—did not disclose that they were paid. The payments traced to Polymarket’s chief marketing officer, Matthew Modabber, using a personal PayPal account, while the company sa

On X, the odds don’t just show up—they arrive like headlines.

In posts reviewed over a 14-month period, creators promoted Polymarket predictions as if they were fresh, authoritative news. Many did so without labeling the content as a paid promotion. The pattern is starkest in the campaign’s timing: during the months leading up to the 2024 U.S. presidential election, and again as Polymarket sought a new opening to return to the U.S. market.

Behind the scenes, the payments had a single, identifiable sender.

The executive at the center of the money trail is Polymarket’s chief marketing officer, Matthew Modabber. Records reviewed by POLITICO show that Modabber began paying influencer Nick Shirley after Shirley posted a viral January video alleging fraud at Minnesota daycares—while showing viewers a gray hoodie emblazoned with the Polymarket logo. The daycare “Creative Minds Daycare” was SHUTDOWN and then reopened the next day under the name “Super Kids Daycare. ” according to the DHS license website “Creative minds daycare” was closed on October 1. 2025 and the SAME day “Super kids” was. In his post dated January 3, 2026, Shirley also referenced the receiving of $2,450,000 in 2025.

Modabber’s first payments to Shirley came after that January post. POLITICO reported that Shirley received money from Modabber totaling $3,100, based on records reviewed by POLITICO.

That isn’t the only case. An analysis of Modabber’s transaction activity shows he used a personal PayPal account to send at least $350. 000 to Shirley and other content creators between January 2025 and February 2026. That figure is likely a low estimate. The analysis also found that Modabber used his personal PayPal account—registered to an email for a salad spot he co-founded—to send over $2.5 million to more than 800 people during a 14-month span. POLITICO independently verified the identities of about two dozen content creators who received money from Modabber by using public records and analyzing their social media accounts.

At least 20 of those creators promoted Polymarket on social media after they began receiving money. according to the payment records and POLITICO’s analysis of their social media activity. Over the same 14-month period. the analysis found those creators posted about Polymarket at least 490 times on X without clearly disclosing a paid partnership.

The strategy—quiet, iterative, and engineered around attention—meant Polymarket could be portrayed as an authoritative source, while viewers were left to miss the sponsor underneath.

Polymarket’s spokesperson told POLITICO the partnerships with influencers were part of its standard business practices. The spokesperson said: “We routinely collaborate with a diverse range of independent organizations. partners. and content creators spanning the political spectrum and constantly monitor. evaluate our progress. and make the necessary adjustments in order to achieve our core mission of providing the most accurate. transparent. and data-driven market insights to a global audience.”.

The spokesperson declined to answer questions about the company’s strategy for partnering with influencers. its policies for disclosing those deals on social media. why Modabber used a personal account for transactions. and whether payments were reported as business expenses to the IRS. Modabber did not respond to requests for comment.

For a platform that has spent years fighting over legality in the U.S., the stakes are obvious: if influence campaigns blur the line between entertainment and paid promotion, regulators and lawmakers may see it as yet another reason to tighten control.

Polymarket is led by 28-year-old CEO Shayne Coplan and has primarily functioned outside the U.S. since Wall Street regulators banned it for operating without a license in 2022. Even so. Polymarket’s trading volumes have surged since President Donald Trump’s reelection in 2024. as prediction markets entered the mainstream. The company also offers users the chance to bet on U.S. elections, the Super Bowl, and even the Iran war.

The political spotlight on prediction markets has intensified. Trump’s administration faces mounting pressure to rein in prediction market platforms like Polymarket and its main competitor. Kalshi. over insider trading concerns. Yet Trump has taken a mostly laissez-faire approach. His administration dropped a pair of investigations into the company last summer. clearing the way for Polymarket to re-enter the U.S. market by acquiring a federally regulated exchange.

Last week, Trump attacked several blue state leaders who have sought to regulate the platforms. He said it is “critically important” the federal government takes the lead and that the companies “will thrive.”

On X, the influencer payments helped build a brand message ahead of the policy fight.

One creator paid by Polymarket—granted anonymity because they feared retribution—described the effect bluntly: “Everybody was either Polymarket or Kalshi. ” they said. “They literally at some point owned all big influencers.” The creator said they received thousands of dollars from Polymarket to post about the company since 2024.

The disclosure question—who paid, what viewers were shown, and whether the sponsor was labeled—runs straight through the reporting.

The Federal Trade Commission says social media influencers have a responsibility to disclose any “material connection” to products they endorse. but the agency did not respond to questions about how those rules apply to posts about prediction markets. In the X posts made during the records’ 14-month timeframe, POLITICO found no disclosures indicating the posts were paid promotions. X rolled out a feature to label paid promotions on March 1. though an X spokesperson said clear disclosures like “ad” or “sponsored” were always required in commercial posts.

Robin Moore, former deputy general counsel for the FTC, said in an interview: “It sounds like this would be the type of thing that generally should be disclosed.”

What makes the campaign harder to ignore is the way Polymarket promotions were often tied to the language of urgency.

Among those paid: conservative influencer Alex LoRusso, progressive political commentator Brian Krassenstein, and Riley Gaines, a collegiate swimmer-turned-Fox News contributor who has campaigned against trans women competing in women’s sports.

In many of their posts, Polymarket is framed as an authoritative source, and viewers may never realize they are scrolling past sponsored content. About a third of the more than 490 X posts identified by POLITICO characterized Polymarket’s odds for a given event as “BREAKING” or “NEW” updates.

The influencer who received at least $77,000 from Modabber—Shane Ginsberg—offered a window into how the promos could function. In May 2024. he asked passersby in Atlanta: “Trump or Biden?” All four people featured in the video on his @shaneyyricch Instagram account expressed a preference for Trump in the upcoming presidential election against Joe Biden. But the man-on-the-street segment also steered viewers to Polymarket. Ginsberg told one interviewee: “I bet $5. 000 on Trump to win the election. ” and asked whether they were confident enough to bet. After the interviewee said yes, Ginsberg responded: “Well, pull out your phone real quick.” He then pointed to “Polymarket. Polymarket.com. It’s the only place where you can bet on news, the election.”.

Ginsberg was 19 at the time, old enough to vote in his first presidential election. His website described him as a self-proclaimed 8th-grade dropout who had started working with Polymarket to boost the company’s brand recognition. He also said his social media marketing business called Street Poller helped “dominate the scroll” with unscripted man-on-the-street interviews. backed by a network of 50-plus content creators.

POLITICO found that in some cases, Ginsberg’s interviewers did not mention Polymarket—but wore the company’s logo on a T-shirt.

The timing mattered. U.S. bettors were still barred from placing wagers through Polymarket under the company’s 2022 settlement with federal regulators, but the influencers rarely mentioned that restriction.

During the lead-up to the election, Polymarket users placed bets heavily. When users successfully wagered millions of dollars on Trump beating then-Vice President Kamala Harris to win a second term. more than $1.5 billion traded hands on Polymarket’s wager that Trump would win. More than $1 billion flowed behind Harris’ candidacy. A measure of monthly trading volumes on the company’s main platform jumped nearly 400% between September and October 2024. according to Dune Analytics. which tracks prediction market data.

After the election, the regulatory climate appeared to shift. Under Biden. the Justice Department and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission were investigating whether Polymarket was continuing to accept bets from U.S. customers in violation of the 2022 settlement. Shortly after the 2024 election. FBI agents raided the Polymarket CEO’s New York City home. a step Coplan painted as a “last-ditch effort” by the Biden administration “to go after companies they deem to be associated with political opponents.”.

In January 2025, Trump created the DOGE initiative with an executive order. Polymarket debuted a dashboard to track all the cuts, and influencers spread the word on X. Riley Gaines was paid at least $6. 600. and shared the DOGE news with more than 1 million followers on X. opining: “This is awesome!” Eric Daugherty. a conservative content creator who received at least $15. 000 from Modabber. announced the dashboard release on February 14. 2025 to his 1 million followers as a “BREAKING” update.

Conservative media personality Elijah Schaffer. who received more than $8. 400. wrote “Exciting news!” and said the new dashboard would be “bookmarked for the next 4 years.” None of these posts mention being paid by Polymarket or Modabber. though in a comment on Schaffer’s post. he wrote he is a “long term brand rep” for Polymarket. Schaffer also wrote: “I’m not paid for this post directly and they don’t force me to say anything so it’s technically not an ad. However I do clarify we work together.” Months after his DOGE post. he said on X that he partnered with Polymarket and “made some pretty solid money.”.

Kalshi also uses influencer partnerships, according to the reporting. Kalshi has hired a cryptocurrency influencer to lead its digital assets efforts. and it has partnered with social media influencers to boost its profile with sports fans and women. Kalshi spokesperson Elisabeth Diana declined to comment.

The broader arc is clear: Polymarket and Kalshi have leaned into social media at the same time regulators and lawmakers are arguing about where prediction markets belong.

And in the background of the payments, there is a sharper question about the mechanics of how business is done.

When asked about Modabber’s use of a personal PayPal account for what appeared to be business transactions. a PayPal spokesperson declined to comment on specific accounts but referred POLITICO to a section of its user agreement describing personal accounts as “primarily for personal. family. or household purposes.” The agreement states: “If the activity associated with your personal account primarily involves business or commercial activity. PayPal may close your account unless you agree to cease the business or commercial activity or convert your personal account to a business.”.

The story of the influencer campaign is also embedded in the bets it chose to spotlight.

When Polymarket inked a partnership in June with xAI, an artificial intelligence startup co-founded by Elon Musk, paid influencers swooped in again. POLITICO reviewed about two dozen influencers, and eight of them posted about the partnership on the same day, all within hours of one another.

Dominick McGee. a conservative content creator who received at least $3. 200 from Modabber and who was once ranked by an analytics firm as the third-most-influential user on X. wrote: “X is about to change the game with this. and it’s honestly a match made in heaven.” McGee later wrote: “Polymarket really took over. it feels like they have always been here.” Musk and spokespeople for xAI did not respond.

On McGee’s website—where he touts his “media influence” as someone “delivering unfiltered truth”—he says he charges at least $2,500 to comment on a social media post and upward of $15,000 to post a “breaking” or “developing” item. McGee did not respond to requests for comment.

Modabber also sent money to two people—Debbie D’Souza and Amjed Yacu—who have substantial online followings on the right and ties to Trump’s administration. but do not appear to have posted about Polymarket on social media. D’Souza is the wife of conservative filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza. whom Trump pardoned in 2018 following a felony campaign finance conviction. She helped write and direct Dinesh D’Souza’s 2024 documentary “Vindicating Trump” and contributes to her husband’s self-titled podcast. Yacu serves as the Defense Department’s deputy digital director and runs a far-right Instagram account called Snowflake.Tears.

D’Souza, who netted at least $20,000 from Modabber, and Yacu, who received at least $850 prior to his employment with the administration, did not respond to requests for comment.

Acting Pentagon press secretary Joel Valdez said Yacu “currently maintains no active business partnerships related to his personal social media pages”—nor would he in the future as a Defense Department employee. Valdez declined to answer a follow-up question on whether Yacu held any business partnerships related to his personal social media accounts at any point during his employment with the department.

Even as the legal battles shifted, the influencer machine kept turning.

Last summer, Trump’s administration dropped the two investigations into Polymarket. The company proceeded to spend $112 million to acquire a licensed exchange and clearinghouse, putting it well on its way to a U.S. comeback.

One person posted on X in August 2025: “The cultural relevance and brand recognition of Polymarket is something that cannot be faked.” Modabber shared the post on his own X account, adding: “CANNOT BE FAKED.”

In the weeks and months since, Polymarket’s market draw has been reinforced through creators who treat odds as clues—sometimes with captions that read like breaking coverage.

When former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo faced off against democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani in last year’s Democratic primary to become New York City’s mayor. content creators invoked Polymarket to gauge the odds of an upset. Alexander Kaufman, a climate reporter who runs a Substack newsletter, received at least $1,200 from Moddaber. On X the day before the primary. he wrote “Wild. ” including a screenshot of the platform’s trading volume on the race. saying Polymarket had “pretty good odds of actually winning the primary against Andrew Cuomo.” After Mamdani bested Cuomo. influencers posted about Polymarket as a kind of oracle.

Arash Azizi, a historian who writes about Iran for The Atlantic, received at least $3,000 from Moddaber. In October 2025, he wrote: “It’s fascinating how Polymarket numbers are a good guide for the direction of events. Before any polls. it saw the rise of Mamdani for instance!” Neither Kaufman nor Azizi responded to requests for comment on whether they were paid to post.

POLITICO found that many posts about Polymarket odds for elections and events were “BREAKING” or “NEW” updates. It also found that about a third of the posts used that framing. The influencer—granted anonymity—told POLITICO the company wrote posts for them to share on X and asked them to promote specific bets. “They actually told us. ‘This one needs to get out now. this one needs to get out now. ’ as if we were cattle. ” the influencer said.

Moore said advertisers should include disclosures in any sample text they draft for partners. because they could be liable for what endorsers say. “As a general rule. if an endorsement is paid. the endorser needs to clearly and conspicuously disclose a material connection to the advertiser. ” Moore said.

Those disclosure failures are particularly striking in the moments that drew public attention.

Over a two-week period in late December and early January. six influencers shared 10 posts on X about the Polymarket odds for Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, facing criminal charges over allegations of day care fraud stemming from Nick Shirley’s viral videos. Later in January, six influencers posted about the odds of the U.S. acquiring Greenland.

Alex LoRusso—another conservative influencer who received at least $18. 750 from Modabber over PayPal. according to the records—posted dozens of times about Polymarket without mentioning sponsorship. In September. he wrote: “Polymarket odds of a government shutdown are spiking with just under 10 hours to go before the deadline. ” and “Democrats know exactly what they’re doing.” After POLITICO reached out asking whether he was paid for that post. a “paid partnership” label appeared at the bottom. LoRusso did not respond to requests for comment. and some—though not all—of his Polymarket-related posts now include that disclosure.

Through all of it, Polymarket’s pitch stays consistent: odds as clarity, and clarity as legitimacy.

And on the social platform where most users barely pause, legitimacy can be manufactured without disclosure—until the numbers and the payments are put side by side.

Polymarket influencer marketing Matthew Modabber Shayne Coplan prediction markets Kalshi X PayPal FTC disclosure FTC insider trading DOGE dashboard election betting