Polymarket is reportedly paying professional Brazilian Counter-Strike players to promote its platform on X. According to Dust2, a Counter-Strike news outlet, the payments range from $20 to $500 per post. The sponsored posts ask players to comment on news events, mention Polymarket, and share their bets.
Polymarket currently lists 509 different Counter-Strike bets. Some of those markets have attracted between $1 million and $2 million in volume.
Players call the sponsored posts “digital cancer”
Not all players are happy about the paid promotions. Professional Counter-Strike player Robin Kool recently threatened to block Polymarket promoters after an official Polymarket Counter-Strike account falsely claimed he was in Paris with a Porsche. Kool called the post “digital cancer” and described people creating sponsored Polymarket posts with AI as “a fucking joke.” He said he would block anyone posting AI slop on his timeline.
Other users were just as blunt. One response described the $20 per tweet offer as a way for professional players “to completely debase yourself… for a morally bankrupt gambling company.” The low price seems to have made the whole arrangement feel worse to some fans.
Fake bets and growing restrictions
This is not the first time Polymarket’s promotional methods have raised questions. The Wall Street Journal reported that its sponsored posts were mostly fake. Influencers were using a fake Polymarket website to create fake bets and show $900,000 in winnings. If the bets had actually been placed, the WSJ calculated they would have resulted in roughly $160,000 in losses.
The Journal also found that “clippers,” people who edit and share footage of influencers online, were only paid if at least 60% of their audience was based in the US. That is notable because Polymarket is not allowed to operate in the US. The platform now lists 39 countries where it is restricted.
A few things remain unclear. Polymarket has not responded publicly to the Dust2 report or the earlier WSJ findings. Protos has reached out to Polymarket for comment and will update this piece if the company responds. Until then, the paid posts are still showing up on X, and the backlash is not going away.
