A handful of major prediction markets found themselves in an awkward spot this week after it came out that some of the “sports insiders” they’d been associated with weren’t real people at all.
Made-Up Reporters
Awful Announcing, the platform that describes itself as the “invaluable source of news and commentary related to the sports media industry, along with sports in pop culture”, pointed the incident out on X. The platform showed that several accounts posing as reporters were actually made-up characters.
X has since stepped in and labeled the accounts as parody. The small icon that linked one of them to a Kalshi partnership has already been removed. Polymarket was also linked to a few of these profiles, including one that received significant attention.
One of the accounts, run under the name Emma Vance, described herself as a “lead Polymarket reporter.”
Her posts mixed gambling chatter with attention-grabbing updates, often packaged as scoops paired with prediction market charts. The account started pushing Polymarket-related content in November and presented itself as a legitimate news source.
Polymarket even went as far as highlighting her on its official social channels.
What no one can say for sure right now is whether Kalshi or Polymarket knew these accounts weren’t real. None of the companies has explained how the connections happened or whether they were part of a deliberate marketing effort.
For now, all that’s clear is that the platforms were linked to fake personas that were convincing enough to operate as “insiders” until someone finally looked closer.
Not the First Fake Person Incident
Last week, an account claiming to be “credentialed men’s college basketball reporter” Scott Hughes posted on X about Kentucky coach Mark Pope’s press conference after a 94-59 loss to Gonzaga.
Hughes wrote that the presser had “gone off the rails,” claiming Pope made a molestation joke in response to a reporter’s question. “Officially off the rails in Nashville,” Hughes added.
The post seemed ready to go viral, especially since reporters often share clips of dramatic press moments. But none of that happened. Pope, however, never made the comment, as Hughes wasn’t in Nashville. In fact, he isn’t even real.
Sports fans have seen this scenario play out more often lately, as Hughes is unfortunately part of the long string of fake reporter occurrences on X, in the context of the lowered safeguards under Elon Musk’s ownership.