WSJ Report: Polymarket's CEO Prioritized Growth Over Stopping a $10 Million Fraud Scheme
A Wall Street Journal investigation published this weekend found that Polymarket, the prediction-market platform that has expanded aggressively into sports event contracts, faced a stolen-card fraud scheme totaling at least $10 million on its US platform earlier this year, and that CEO Shayne Coplan told staff to keep prioritizing growth rather than shut the exposure down immediately. The report draws on internal documents and sources familiar with the matter, and details a scheme that ran from around February 2026 before the company tightened its controls.
What the investigation found
According to the report, fraudsters used stolen debit cards to fund deposits, place wagers, and attempt to withdraw winnings to accounts they controlled. Polymarket's payment processor, Checkout.com, flagged an unusually high share of deposits as fraudulent — reportedly more than 80% at the peak, compared with roughly 1% typically seen across the payments industry. A relatively small group of roughly seven users were responsible for the bulk of the attempted fraud, with one account alone attempting around 4,000 separate deposits. The Journal reported that Polymarket had also removed a standard anti-money-laundering safeguard requiring withdrawals to return to the same payment method used for a deposit — a control that competitors including DraftKings and FanDuel reportedly still maintain.
Leadership response and departures
Sources cited by the Journal said Coplan directed staff to focus on growth and deal with any regulatory consequences later, rather than pause the exposure. The company's then-US Chief Compliance Officer, Andrew Clifford, resigned in April after submitting an internal report on the fraud; Polymarket's then-US division CEO, Justin Hertzberg, was later fired, along with other members of the company's regulatory and anti-money-laundering teams. By May, the company had implemented stricter card-linking limits and fraud rates were reported to have returned closer to industry norms. The report also noted a separate incident in July, in which several hundred user accounts were compromised through a registration vulnerability that let attackers use stolen personal information to access accounts.
Why it matters to US bettors
Polymarket has increasingly positioned itself as an alternative to licensed sportsbooks for wagering on game outcomes through its event-contract structure, even as the Commodity Futures Trading Commission continues to review the platform and multiple states have separately challenged whether its sports contracts require a state gambling license. This report adds a new dimension to that scrutiny: a documented internal account of a major US platform allegedly weighing growth against consumer-protection controls during a large-scale fraud event, at a company that is separately reported to be raising roughly $1 billion in new financing at a valuation near $21 billion. For anyone weighing a licensed, state-regulated sportsbook against a prediction-market platform, the report is a reminder that the two categories currently operate under very different oversight and consumer-protection regimes.