Polymarket's influencer push puts Shayne Coplan's trust machine under scrutiny

Why it matters

Polymarket's edge is not just liquidity. It is the belief that its odds are a cleaner public signal than commentary. Undisclosed paid promotion threatens that belief at the moment prediction markets are trying to move into the US mainstream.

A Business Insider report published June 5 says Shayne Coplan's Polymarket paid influencers hundreds of thousands of dollars before they promoted Polymarket on X without clearly disclosing the relationship.

Coplan, 28, has made Polymarket into the best-known consumer brand in prediction markets, a category that asks users to treat trading odds as a sharper public signal than polls, pundits or cable news panels. That makes the new reporting more than a marketing-process story. Polymarket's product depends on trust in the market as an information layer. The allegation is that Polymarket also bought some of the attention that made that layer look organic.

The payments behind the posts

Business Insider, citing payment records reviewed by POLITICO, reported that Polymarket chief marketing officer Matthew Modabber used a personal PayPal account to send at least $350,000 to Nick Shirley and other creators between January 2025 and February 2026. The report says the figure is likely an undercount.

The broader PayPal account activity was much larger: more than $2.5 million sent to more than 800 people over the 14-month period, according to Business Insider's description of the records. POLITICO independently identified about two dozen content creators among the recipients, using public records and social media analysis. At least 20 of those creators later promoted Polymarket on X after receiving money, and they posted about Polymarket at least 490 times during the period without clear paid-partnership disclosures, the report said.

One example was Nick Shirley (@nickshirleyy), a 24-year-old influencer with 1.6 million X followers, according to Business Insider. Shirley wore a gray Polymarket hoodie in a January video about alleged fraud at Minnesota daycares. Business Insider said he had already received money from Modabber before earlier Polymarket appearances in his content, including a December 2025 man-on-the-street video.

The named creators in the report cut across political lanes: conservative influencer Alex LoRusso, progressive commentator Brian Krassenstein, and Riley Gaines, a former collegiate swimmer and Fox News contributor. That breadth fits Polymarket's strategic problem. Prediction markets gain power when they are quoted as neutral infrastructure by people who otherwise disagree.

The real risk is not the spend

Polymarket did not deny working with creators. A Polymarket spokesperson told POLITICO: "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 response leaves the core operating questions unanswered. Business Insider reported that the spokesperson declined to address Polymarket's disclosure policies, the reason Modabber used a personal PayPal account, and whether the payments were reported as business expenses.

The distinction matters. Paying creators is normal growth work. Paying creators who frame Polymarket's odds as independent public wisdom, without clear sponsorship labels, is different because Polymarket's marketing claim and product claim collapse into the same feed. If the posts make the odds appear organically authoritative, the growth channel reinforces the product narrative.

That narrative has become more valuable as prediction markets push toward the center of US finance and politics. Polymarket, launched in 2020, has operated primarily outside the US since regulators barred it in 2022 for operating without a license, according to Business Insider. The outlet reported that Polymarket's trading volume rose after Donald Trump's 2024 reelection and that the Trump administration dropped two investigations into Polymarket last summer. Donald Trump Jr. is an investor in Polymarket and a paid adviser to Kalshi, Polymarket's main rival.

That political backdrop is why the influencer payments hit at a sensitive moment. Coplan is trying to turn Polymarket from a crypto-native betting venue into a mainstream reference point for probabilities around elections, sports, policy and war. The more Polymarket wants regulators, journalists and retail traders to treat its prices as public signal, the less room it has for opaque distribution tactics that make paid promotion look like independent conviction.