--- title: Inside Polymarket's paid quote-retweet esports program description: An investigation reveals that Polymarket runs a paid quote-retweet program involving over 800 esports creators, commentators, players, and media figures,... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/inside-polymarket-s-paid-quote-retweet-esports-program-kbdye2wvk twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Inside Polymarket's paid quote-retweet esports program | daily.dev og:description: An investigation reveals that Polymarket runs a paid quote-retweet program involving over 800 esports creators, commentators, players, and media figures,... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/inside-polymarket-s-paid-quote-retweet-esports-program-kbdye2wvk og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/kbDYe2Wvk.png og:image:alt: Inside Polymarket's paid quote-retweet esports program og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Inside Polymarket's paid quote-retweet esports program **[Hacker News](https://daily.dev/sources/hn)** · 13 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary An investigation reveals that Polymarket runs a paid quote-retweet program involving over 800 esports creators, commentators, players, and media figures, paying $10 to several hundred dollars per post in crypto through a Discord server and proprietary tracking tool called PolyTrack. Internal messages show Polymarket representatives repeatedly instructing participants to make sponsored posts look 'organic,' despite requiring an X paid-partnership disclosure tag. The program has more than doubled since August, with an estimated $2,000-$4,000 payout per post for popular titles like League of Legends, Valorant, and Counter-Strike, raising questions among esports fans about gambling-adjacent companies' growing influence in the scene. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### How much does Polymarket pay creators for quote-retweeting its esports content? Payouts range from about $10 to several hundred dollars per post, paid in cryptocurrency, with rates negotiated based on a creator's typical view counts before joining. Tier 1 casters, talent, and well-known players can command higher rates; one user reported earning nearly $900 in a month from roughly a dozen posts, while top negotiated fees reached the $200-300 range. _Anyone tracking how crypto and prediction markets intersect with creator economies follows stories like this on daily.dev._ ### How many creators are in Polymarket's esports promotion program? The program grew from over 300 creators at the start of August to more than 800 two months later, according to internal statements from Polymarket representatives in a Discord server used to run the operation. Participants include esports commentators, professional players, coaches, PR professionals, and content creators across League of Legends, Valorant, Counter-Strike, and Dota 2. _Readers following gambling and sponsorship trends in gaming can track reporting like this on daily.dev._ ### What is PolyTrack and how does Polymarket manage its creator payment program? PolyTrack is a proprietary dashboard where participants in Polymarket's esports promotion program input tax information and crypto wallet addresses, and through which the company tracks monthly and lifetime earnings per creator. Polymarket switched from PayPal to crypto payments after PayPal accounts kept getting blocked due to high payment volume. _Developers curious about the tooling behind influencer payment pipelines can find similar deep dives on daily.dev._ ## Community take How the wider developer community reacted, aggregated from 1 discussion and 84 comments across hackernews (as of 2026-10-16). **TL;DR:** Commenters largely view this as confirmation that Polymarket (and gambling/crypto platforms broadly) engage in slimy, barely-disclosed astroturf marketing, part of a wider concern about predatory gambling normalization and manipulated social media accounts. **Sentiment:** 2% positive · 13% mixed · 85% skeptical **The case for** - A few argue prediction markets aren't purely predatory since makers can act as the 'house' and some markets are beatable without a speed edge. - Some see risky betting/trading as a rational, if sad, response to wealth inequality and diminished traditional paths to financial security. **The pushback** - Many describe seeing Polymarket/Kalshi/casino ads flooding social feeds as part of a troubling rise in gambling addiction. - Commenters argue gambling products disproportionately exploit people who are already financially vulnerable. - Several claim the real trading edge belongs to HFT firms with faster data access, leaving retail users at a structural disadvantage. - Some allege Polymarket's own Twitter accounts are rebranded, purchased esports personality accounts, drawing parallels to broader shady account-buying/astroturfing practices seen on Reddit and elsewhere. - One commenter argues paid organic-looking promotion like this should be made illegal given the weak disclosure. **By community** - hackernews (skeptical): Discussion is dominated by criticism of gambling-ification of social media, predatory targeting of vulnerable users, and allegations of astroturfed/rebranded accounts, with only scattered pushback defending prediction markets. **Hottest debate:** Whether prediction markets like Polymarket are a legitimate, beatable PVP activity or just another extractive gambling product exploiting retail users against HFT-advantaged players. **Open questions** - Is there a legal justification for allowing paid posts to be disguised as organic opinion despite disclosure requirements? - How widespread is the practice of buying and rebranding established social media accounts for marketing purposes? **Highlights** > Lesser known is that Polymarket’s Twitter accounts themselves are actually rebranded personal accounts from (often cancelled) esports personalities. People who have given up their brand or their career sold their accounts to Polymarket, who rebranded them. You can check by looking up tweets from their account IDs. I think it’s possible they may have even left up the old tweets if you scroll back far enough. > — [lwansbrough on hackernews · 1 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50120510) > I have an old reddit account with a lot of karma. I once got an offer for it, I believe around $2,000. Maybe that offer was a scam, but people seem to be contacted to buy their accounts. Its incredible to me how much this is being done by deep pocketed marketers, and I imagine botnet operators working for heaven knows who. This something not talked about much but buying up and re-branding accounts with established viewership or high-karma happens a lot. I have seen it politically and part of shady marking. I read the girlsgamer sub on reddit and I remember a big influx of "I'm a woman and I support (current game with sexist elements)." Back then you could see everyone's post and comment history. You could see these accounts went quiet a year or two or three ago and their history was very male coded, then came back on-line recently pushing culture-war narratives and describing themselves very differently than their original posts and comments. I also saw the same thing with some suspicious right-wing posts on some political subs I'm on. Just an old account that had little to no political posting history suddenly coming alive and posting non-stop politics. I find it interesting and suspicious reddit only started allowing hidden profiles after this and when people started pointing this out. I think its safe to say all social media is badly compromised and gamed by monied interests. > — [zoeysmithe on hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50121068) > > I feel fine participating because Polymarket has no house edge or VIG > Prediction markets are PVP thats the way i look at it This is true but people should at least be informed that the overwhelming majority of trading volume is HFT firms with faster access to data and the prediction markets than you. These firms pay the prediction markets for that access, and the losses that happen on prediction markets flow to these few large HFT shops. > — [kart23 on hackernews · 1 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50120538) > Gambling and betting always seem target explotation of people who aren't well off already. Like lottery tickets I worry that Polymarket, Kalshi and the like are ways to further destroy the marginal in an apathetic if not malign political environment. It doesn't seem like anyone is doing anything about it. > — [Avicebron on hackernews · 2 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50120929) > this is the kind of thing we need to make illegal is there a justification for it not being illegal? > — [verdverm on hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50121173) **Source threads** - [hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50120010) · 59 points · 84 comments ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [I rebuilt 0xinsider around Polymarket sports and esports ...](https://daily.dev/posts/i-rebuilt-0xinsider-around-polymarket-sports-and-esports--0euvhp5fx) · Trevor Lasn · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Polymarket says hackers stole users' funds](https://daily.dev/posts/polymarket-says-hackers-stole-users-funds-t57t1dzov) · TechCrunch · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Polymarket confirms hackers stole $3M from users after third-party vendor was compromised](https://daily.dev/posts/polymarket-confirms-hackers-stole-3m-from-users-after-third-party-vendor-was-compromised-xjgaqqwd9) · The Next Web · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Newly created Polymarket accounts win big on well-timed Iran ceasefire bets](https://daily.dev/posts/newly-created-polymarket-accounts-win-big-on-well-timed-iran-ceasefire-bets-lrta7rsvh) · Hacker News · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Polymarket customers lose $3 million in supply-chain attack](https://daily.dev/posts/polymarket-customers-lose-3-million-in-supply-chain-attack-udeprymjt) · BleepingComputer · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#social-media](https://daily.dev/tags/social-media), [#polymarket](https://daily.dev/tags/polymarket), [#influencer-marketing](https://daily.dev/tags/influencer-marketing) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/inside-polymarket-s-paid-quote-retweet-esports-program-kbdye2wvk) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Inside Polymarket's paid quote-retweet esports program","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/inside-polymarket-s-paid-quote-retweet-esports-program-kbdye2wvk","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/inside-polymarket-s-paid-quote-retweet-esports-program-kbdye2wvk"},"datePublished":"2026-10-16T17:18:59.696Z","dateModified":"2026-10-16T17:30:39.450Z","description":"An investigation reveals that Polymarket runs a paid quote-retweet program involving over 800 esports creators, commentators, players, and media figures,...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/89f095be7c6259acbd93f1d5021669d0?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/89f095be7c6259acbd93f1d5021669d0?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Hacker News","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Hacker News","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/hn","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/hn"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/inside-polymarket-s-paid-quote-retweet-esports-program-kbdye2wvk","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"social-media,polymarket,influencer-marketing","timeRequired":"PT13M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Hacker News","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/hn"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Inside Polymarket's paid quote-retweet esports program"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/inside-polymarket-s-paid-quote-retweet-esports-program-kbdye2wvk#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"How much does Polymarket pay creators for quote-retweeting its esports content?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Payouts range from about $10 to several hundred dollars per post, paid in cryptocurrency, with rates negotiated based on a creator's typical view counts before joining. 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