Polymarket’s chief marketing officer Matthew Modabber used his personal PayPal account to send at least $350,000 to content creators who hyped the prediction market platform, Politico reports. Shirley and others who were paid promoted Polymarket on X with no paid content disclosures. Influencer content is a huge part of prediction markets’ media strategy — often hiding in plain sight.
Mia Sato

Features Writer, The Verge
Features Writer, The Verge
Mia Sato is a reporter at The Verge covering tech companies, platforms, and users. Since joining The Verge in 2021, she’s reported on the war in Ukraine and the spread of propaganda on TikTok; Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter; and how tech platforms and digital publishers are using artificial intelligence tools. Sato has written about tech platforms and communities since 2019. Before joining Vox Media she was a reporter at MIT Technology Review, where she covered the intersection of technology and the coronavirus pandemic. Prior to that she served as the audience engagement editor at The Markup. As a freelance reporter, she’s written about the subversive Hmong radio shows hosted on conference call software, online knitting activism, and the teens running businesses in Instagram comment sections. Her work has appeared in outlets like The New Republic, The Appeal, and Chicago Magazine. She is based in Brooklyn. Got a tip? Contact her at mia@theverge.com or on Signal at miasato.11.
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