# NYC Council Speaker Julie Menin Launches Investigation Into Polymarket and Kalshi > Source: > Published: 2026-08-13 18:53:51+00:00 *New York City has opened a fresh front against prediction markets, and the weak spot is not the wager itself. It is how these platforms sell the wager to you.* New York City wants to know how prediction markets talk to your kids. On August 11, Council Speaker Julie Menin sent formal letters to Polymarket, Kalshi, Coinbase and Gemini Titan demanding answers to more than 60 questions about local users, revenue, marketing practices and consumer protections within 14 days. The deadline is August 25. The sharpest material in those letters comes from a June Wall Street Journal investigation into Polymarket's creator campaign. The Journal said it reviewed 1,133 videos posted by 10 TikTok creators between December 2025 and mid-May 2026, and found that 1,105 promoted Polymarket. In 778 of those videos, creators appeared to place bets. The Journal found they were using fake websites, not the real platform. That is the real risk. According to the Journal, creators were paid about $2,000 to $3,000 a month and were told not to disclose the relationship at first. Some clips showed apparent wins built around old news footage or altered media. In one January video, a creator showed a $100,000 win on a bet that President Donald Trump would say McDonald's that month, but the relevant footage was from two months earlier. The Journal found more than 50 real accounts made the same bet in January and all lost. Undisclosed influencer deals are already a problem. Ads that may reach minors for a product where users can put real money on real-world outcomes sit in another category. The money is real. So is the marketing. ## The city's lane is consumer protection Menin's inquiry is not pretending City Hall can settle the whole prediction-market fight. It can't. These platforms operate in a legal fight between federal commodities rules and state gambling laws, and that fight is already in courtrooms from New York to Massachusetts. City Hall has a lane. It can press on consumer protection and advertising claims - whether marketing aimed at New Yorkers is clear and properly disclosed. The Council can hold hearings, draft local legislation, push public education campaigns and use subpoena power if companies stonewall. That is narrower than a gambling prosecution. It is also easier to hold. The state backdrop matters because it shows how crowded this fight has become. On April 21, New York Attorney General Letitia James sued Coinbase Financial Markets and Gemini Titan, saying their prediction markets were illegal gambling operations in New York and exposed users aged 18 to 20 to betting products below the state's 21-year threshold for mobile sports wagering. Kalshi is in a different posture in New York: the New York State Gaming Commission sent it a cease-and-desist letter in October 2025, Kalshi sued the commission, and a federal judge denied Kalshi's bid for a preliminary injunction on July 7. Look, that distinction matters. Lumping every company into the same lawsuit makes the story cleaner than the facts allow, and this is exactly the kind of subject where clean summaries get you in trouble. ## Trust is the product Prediction markets became harder to ignore during the 2024 election, when Polymarket's odds were watched far beyond crypto circles. Kalshi has pushed the regulated-exchange argument. Coinbase and Gemini moved into event contracts through businesses that New York says still look like betting. Same fight, different doors. You do not have to accept every state claim to see why consumer watchdogs are circling. Polymarket has the most immediate reputational problem. The Journal's figures go directly at how the product was presented to potential users. That is not nothing. A fake betting interface is not a small creative liberty when the pitch is that markets reveal real information. If seven out of ten promotional videos that showed bets used dummy sites, the platform has to explain itself. Who approved them. Who paid for them. And why disclosure came so late. Polymarket said after the Journal report that it was committed to accurate and transparent markets and would conduct a comprehensive audit of active promotional content. Fine. An audit is the minimum. New York City's questions are asking for something harder: names, numbers, local revenue, local users, marketing workflows and proof that the campaign did not cross lines meant to protect children and ordinary consumers. Kalshi, Coinbase and Gemini have their own answers to give. Kalshi says its contracts are federally regulated financial instruments, not gambling. James says Coinbase and Gemini's products are gambling by another name. The CFTC has also been asserting federal authority over event contracts, including in disputes where states have tried to apply gambling law to registered markets. Now the clock is doing the work. If the companies answer cleanly by August 25, Menin gets a record and the public gets a clearer view of how these platforms operate in New York City. If they dodge, the next version of this story is not about influencer videos. It is about subpoenas and hearings - and whether prediction markets can keep calling themselves information tools while selling themselves like a shortcut to easy money. **Also read:** [Google Prices the Pixel 11 Pro at $1,099 and Bets You'll Pay for Gemini](https://startupfortune.com/google-prices-the-pixel-11-pro-at-1099-and-bets-youll-pay-for-gemini/) • [Vantage Data Centers Weighs a $100 Billion IPO or Sale, Bloomberg Reports](https://startupfortune.com/vantage-data-centers-weighs-a-100-billion-ipo-or-sale-bloomberg-reports/) • [Samsung Sold Out Every Gigabit of Its 2026 HBM4 Memory Chips](https://startupfortune.com/samsung-sold-out-every-gigabit-of-its-2026-hbm4-memory-chips/)