Polymarket turns to Kathryn Bigelow for its first U.S. political ad campaign

Polymarket has begun its first U.S. political advertising campaign, releasing a national three-film push on Oct. 14, three weeks before Election Day. The campaign uses fictional stories built around issues voters face, including grocery and gas prices, as the prediction-market company seeks a broader audience ahead of the midterm elections.

Two of the advertisements were directed by Kathryn Bigelow, the Academy Award-winning filmmaker behind "The Hurt Locker" and "Zero Dark Thirty", according to Adweek. In one, a campaign worker turns whistleblower after a late-night discovery involving her congressman. In another, a bachelorette party is derailed by the sharply higher cost of living.

The third film was directed by Pantera, the Argentinian trio of Brian Kazez, Pato Martinez and Francisco Canton. Smuggler produced the campaign.

The political push follows Polymarket's broader "Polymarket HQ" brand campaign, which began in September with a 60-second advertisement set in a fictional skyscraper whose floors cover politics, the economy, culture and technology. That effort was planned for U.S. television, digital, out-of-home and social-media channels, Yahoo Finance reported.

Polymarket launched in 2020. Its regulatory history included a January 2022 Commodity Futures Trading Commission settlement that found the platform had operated as an illegal unregistered or non-designated venue for event-based binary-options online contracts. The settlement imposed a $1.4 million fine and barred U.S. operations.

In July 2025, the Trump administration ended Justice Department and CFTC inquiries into allegations that Polymarket had continued to permit illegal U.S. gambling. That month, Polymarket acquired QCEX, a U.S.-regulated, licensed derivatives exchange, enabling it to participate in U.S. markets.

The Brennan Center for Justice has cautioned that prediction markets including Polymarket and Kalshi may be mistaken for reliable election-information sources despite being speculative wagers based on opinion. It said the rising visibility of election markets before the midterms could influence voters who are not fully informed about candidates or issues, and described proposition bets as investments in opinions rather than validation of facts.