Polymarket has dismissed Chief Marketing Officer Matthew Modabber after an internal investigation examined a set of marketing practices that raised compliance concerns, according to a New York Post exclusive published on Oct. 23 and based on people familiar with the matter. The board viewed those issues as obstacles that needed to be cleared ahead of a potential initial public offering.
Modabber had been in charge of growth since January 2024. The report described him as a close associate of founder and CEO Shayne Coplan, noting that the two were high school classmates and had worked closely together for years.
Probe focused on fake profit pages and undisclosed influencer deals
According to the New York Post, the company’s internal independent review covered several marketing tactics tied to Modabber, including fake profit webpages, staged trading videos, and undisclosed sponsorship payments to online influencers made through a personal account.
One part of the case traces back to an earlier Wall Street Journal investigation. That report said the marketing team under Modabber created fabricated trading front-end pages and recorded promotional videos that suggested ordinary users could easily profit through arbitrage on the platform. The New York Post said those allegations drew the attention of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, or CFTC, which opened an inquiry. No final administrative penalty has been issued on that matter so far, according to the report.
Another issue came from a later Politico report. It said Modabber bypassed the company’s standard corporate finance review process and used his personal PayPal account to pay multiple social media influencers for promotion, while the commercial relationship was not disclosed publicly. The report said that conduct may have run into Federal Trade Commission rules on transparency in sponsored advertising.
Board and investors pushed for the move
The New York Post said people familiar with the matter described internal tension over the decision. When legal and compliance staff first argued that Modabber had to go, Coplan resisted and tried to protect a longtime ally from the company’s earliest days.
That position changed as outside scrutiny increased. The board and institutional investors pressed harder, and the board ultimately concluded that the aggressive marketing tactics had become a serious obstacle as Polymarket sought access to a higher tier of mainstream financial markets. In that setting, Coplan accepted the need to remove legacy compliance problems as the company pursued a possible IPO and a more formal capital-markets path.
The two sides are now working through a final separation agreement with outside legal counsel, the report said.
Growth has brought heavier scrutiny
The report also said Polymarket has grown into a dominant consumer brand in prediction markets as trading tied to recent global macro and election themes accelerated, with monthly volume running into the billions of dollars.
That scale has brought more attention to tactics that may have been tolerated earlier in the crypto sector. The New York Post noted that Polymarket had previously paid a fine over offering binary options services to U.S. retail users and was required to implement strict offshore geofencing restrictions.
Polymarket has declined to comment publicly on the CMO’s departure and on the status of the internal investigation, according to the report.