Ever wondered what those Polymarket quote tweets in your feed actually cost? According to a new report, as little as $10. Integrity's cheaper than we thought.
In the last few months, Polymarket has become an unavoidable topic in the world of esports.
Their sponsorships are everywhere, from podcasts to tournament organisers, and even to Twitter accounts with low four-figure follower counts that now seem to clog up your feed like a UK citizen at a Schengen border.
With most people outright rejecting this clearly inorganic infiltration of the casual community, the people on the outside have often asked how much these people are selling out for, and a report from Mikhail Klimentov, known online as LeaderGrev, has finally answered that question.
How much are people sharing Polymarket's posts for?
In the report, it's stated that the value for posting bottoms out at a measly $10, while some higher reputation figures have been earning up to as much as $400 per post. Per post!
It's also stated in the report that another user earned around $900 dollars in one month, in return for a dozen posts.
But how do the Polymarket affiliates know what to interact with? How do they actually get paid?
It all starts with a Discord channel, where the affiliates are sent posts to interact with, and told how to actually interact with them in doing so. Emojis are discouraged, while longer posts with hot takes or questions in them are all the rage in an attempt to make it look "organic".
If you want to make your affiliates look organic, Polymarket, have you considered not giving them all Polymarket badges? Might help.
The affiliates are then onboarded onto something called PolyTool, which allows them to input their tax information, crypto wallet address, and their quote retweets on X.
The overall cost of this program is unknown, but given the frequency in which we see Polymarket tweets in CS, and the knowledge that they are also doing this in most other major esports titles, one can only assume that it's astronomical.
Annoying as it is, it works. Polymarket is everywhere, and you'd struggle to find anyone in esports who doesn't know what it is. A couple of years ago, prediction markets were a niche curiosity, and few people could tell you how they differed from a regular bookie. Now, everyone's heard the pitch: it's not gambling, it's trading!
That separation is also what makes the affiliates feel comfortable to do so, as one contributor to LeaderGrev's report said that Polymarket is simply "PvP" and that there's "no house edge", so they don't feel bad about promoting it.
But, as Ollie Ring - great bloke, btw, genuinely - says in the report: "The appetite was always there for people to bet", so we'd hazard a guess that even if Polymarket wasn't what it is, these people would be taking their money anyway.