New York City's Council has opened an investigation into how Polymarket and three rival platforms market themselves, alleging that some of their advertising is deceptive and aimed squarely at young people. Council Speaker Julie Menin announced the move on August 12, as demand letters went out to the four companies: Polymarket, Kalshi, Coinbase and Gemini Titan.
Each letter runs to more than 60 questions covering the company's New York revenue, its local user numbers and the mechanics of its marketing operation, and the companies have 14 days to answer. Two Council committees are running the inquiry: Consumer and Worker Protection, chaired by Council Member Harvey Epstein, and Oversight and Investigations, chaired by Shekar Krishnan.
The core allegations concern undisclosed influencer marketing; videos showing trades that never happened, filmed on counterfeit sites built to look like Polymarket; fictitious depictions of profitable trades that would in fact have lost money; and the promotion of insider trading. "We refuse to let New Yorkers, especially our young people, become collateral damage," Menin said. Krishnan was blunter: "Their unprecedented reach is because they are preying on young adults and minors."
What set the inquiry off
The move leans heavily on a June Wall Street Journal investigation that examined roughly 1,100 creator videos promoting Polymarket and found that about seven in ten were shot on counterfeit versions of the platform, staging gains that never occurred. "With the industry aggressively marketing to New Yorkers, we have a responsibility to investigate their claims," Epstein said. The committees want to know how far that advertising was aimed at a young, vulnerable audience, and what the companies have done to curb compulsive use.
The inquiry lands days after New York Governor Kathy Hochul and Attorney General Letitia James sued Kalshi on July 31 over what they called illegal activity in the state, leaving Polymarket and Kalshi under pressure on two fronts at once, state and city. Polymarket returned to US operation under federal oversight by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and its position, like its rivals', is that these are federally regulated event contracts, not a product a city or state may ban.
For an ordinary reader, the practical takeaway is simple: judge a platform by facts you can verify, such as fees, resolution rules and official data, rather than by an influencer clip showing an easy "win." Polymarket had not publicly answered the Council's questions by the time this piece was published, and has 14 days to do so.
