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Polymarket underwent layoffs last week, but viral posts saying the company cut 30% of its staff were not accurate, sources tell Front Office Sports.
Some full-time employees were laid off, although the full scope was not clear. The company also significantly reduced the number of contractors it will work with moving forward, especially in marketing, which is an area that has recently been “heavily reorganized,” one source who is familiar with the company says. The company’s former CMO, Matthew Modabber, was fired in October. He was replaced by former Uber executive Travis VanderZanden, whose title at Polymarket is chief growth officer.
A handful of people have posted on social media about losing their jobs, including employees who worked in areas like creative and growth, video, and marketing. One person who posted about losing their job appears to have since deleted their LinkedIn profile. FOS spoke to four people for this story, none of whom were among those laid off.
“As we’ve grown and brought on new leadership, we’ve reorganized to set the company up for its next phase of growth, which has meant a lot of new hires, changes in personnel and letting some people go,” a Polymarket spokesperson said in an emailed statement to FOS. “We’re grateful to the team that got us here, and we’ll keep growing as we build what’s next.”
Polymarket declined to disclose how many employees it currently has or how many contractors it works with.
Viral posts saying 30% of the company was affected were inaccurate, a source familiar with the matter tells FOS. One post, made Nov. 4, said “Polymarket fires 30% of its workforce following the Democratic tsunami,” referring to the midterm elections. Another, made Nov. 7, said the company “laid off about 30% of its staff after the midterms,” adding “laptops, email, and building access were cut on the spot.”
The first post included an email screenshot. “We’re reaching out with difficult news,” the email says. “As part of a company-wide reduction in force, we’ve made the decision to end your contractor agreement with Polymarket effective Nov. 4.”
The screenshot was “not fake,” one source tells FOS. That email was sent only to contractors, not full-time employees, the source says.
“They’ve cleaned house in a lot of spots, and there are full-time employees that have been moved out as the company has been hiring other people,” says another source. “There have been a lot of changes to the place. It’s not like a struggle for cash or something.”
The company is putting the finishing touches on a $1 billion funding round being led by Donald Trump Jr.’s 1789 Capital, a source recently told FOS. That funding will reportedly value Polymarket at about $21 billion. On Tuesday, Polymarket told CNBC it has eclipsed $1.8 billion in annualized revenue. That represents an increase from June, when Polymarket said its annual revenue run rate was higher than $1 billion. Polymarket attributes the jump to the growth of its U.S. exchange; the company relaunched in the U.S. in December 2025, following nearly four years during which it was barred from operating in the country under a settlement with the Joe Biden-era Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Polymarket’s Professionalization Push
The larger reorganization has been taking place as it seeks to “professionalize” ahead of a potential go-public deal that could take place as soon as 2027, according to two sources.
Those efforts have included a number of significant hires in recent months. Major recent appointments include global head of trust and safety Malea Otranto, who joined in August after almost seven years at Meta; head of institutional growth Lisa Mantil, who started at Polymarket in September after nearly three decades at Goldman Sachs; and CFO Warren Jenson, who started in September and has previously held the same role at Amazon, Electronic Arts, and Delta Air Lines.
The professionalization push comes as Polymarket attempts to grow rapidly and surpass its primary rival, Kalshi, while also grappling with numerous controversies. (Kalshi holds a dominant market share; in the third quarter, it was responsible for 73% of total prediction-market volume, according to a report from Predicted; Polymarket was in second place with about 18% of volume). While its U.S. platform is the subject of lawsuits and attempted enforcement by state regulators who believe sports-event contracts are synonymous with traditional sports betting, much of the controversy surrounding Polymarket is tied to its international platform.
Last month, the company came under fire for a market that allowed users to bet on whether any of the seven male defendants accused of raping a Cornell student will be charged with a felony sex crime. The same day FOS reported on that market, the company removed it.
Its international platform has also produced two high-profile scandals: in April, a U.S. soldier was indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice for allegedly using inside information to make more than $400,000 trading on when the military would capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, and in May, the Justice Department indicted a Google software engineer for allegedly using confidential internal information to make more than $1.2 million on Polymarket by betting on markets related to who the most-searched person of 2025 would be.
Polymarket’s job cuts come during a year in which the sports betting industry has had substantial layoffs. DraftKings has had at least three rounds of layoffs this year, and other companies that have reduced their workforces include FanDuel, Underdog, PrizePicks, Penn Entertainment, and Gambling.com Group (the latter has since changed its name to Grandstand).
