Jack Paul 
Polymarket is reportedly paying professional Counter-Strike players in Brazil to promote its prediction market on X. According to Counter-Strike news outlet Dust2, the payments range from $20 to $500 per post. Players are asked to comment on news events while mentioning Polymarket and sharing their bets.
The reported payments come as Polymarket runs a large number of Counter-Strike-related markets. The platform currently lists 509 different Counter-Strike bets, and some of them attract between $1 million and $2 million in trading volume.
Players react to sponsored posts
Not everyone is happy about the arrangement. Professional Counter-Strike player Robin Kool recently threatened to block accounts promoting Polymarket after an official Polymarket Counter-Strike account falsely claimed he was in Paris with a Porsche. Kool described the post as “digital cancer.” He also criticized people making sponsored Polymarket posts with AI, calling it “a fucking joke.”
Some users on X reacted even more sharply. One person said that taking $20 per tweet was a way for professional players “to completely debase yourself… for a morally bankrupt gambling company.”
Fake bets and restrictions
This is not the first time Polymarket has faced criticism over sponsored content. The Wall Street Journal earlier reported that many of its promotional posts were fake. Influencers used a fake Polymarket website to create fake bets and display winnings of $900,000. If the bets had been real, the WSJ calculated they would have resulted in roughly $160,000 in losses.
The WSJ also found that “clippers,” people who edit and share footage of influencers online, were only paid if 60% of their audience was based in the US. That matters because Polymarket is not allowed to operate in the United States.
Polymarket now lists 39 countries where it is restricted. The platform appears to be expanding its marketing efforts through esports, but the backlash from players and viewers suggests those efforts are not always landing well.
Protos has reached out to Polymarket for comment and will update this piece if the company responds.