The McDonald's bet: a staged “$100,000 win” checked against the real market

In my first note on the New York City Council's prediction-market investigation, I said I would separate the claims into pieces that public trading data can actually test. Here is one, worked all the way through.

On June 20, 2026, the Wall Street Journal reported that a creator, George Makihara, posted a January video showing him winning $100,000 on a bet that President Trump would say “McDonald's” that month — filmed on a look-alike site, not Polymarket's real one. The Journal also reported something independently checkable: “more than 50 accounts made the McDonald's bet in January, public data shows. All of them lost.” That video is one of the examples behind the Council's Aug 12, 2026 letters to four platforms.

The report makes two claims that can be tested separately. First, the video's own claim: a real $1,000 stake at roughly 1% odds turning into $100,000. Second, the Journal's claim about the real market: that dozens of real accounts took the same bet and every one of them lost. The first is what the Council is investigating. The second is what the public record can test directly.

I found the real market: “Will Trump say ‘McDonald's’ in January?”, part of Polymarket's recurring monthly “What will Trump say” event, open Jan 2–31, 2026. (A same-wording market from January 2025, about the inauguration speech, is a different market and was ruled out.) Then I pulled every fill anyone made in it — 85 in total, a single page, well under any pagination cap — and separately pulled the current list of wallets still holding Yes tokens, because a position created directly on-chain never produces a trade row and would otherwise be invisible.

1. Did the market exist and resolve as reported? Yes. It resolved No on Feb 1, 2026. The market resolved No under its published criteria.
2. How many real wallets took the Yes side? 34 wallets show a Yes-side trade; 26 currently hold Yes tokens; 14 of those 26 never appear in the trade data at all. The union is 48 wallets. The Journal reported “more than 50.” Close, not identical, and I would rather say so than round up to match the headline.
3. Did anyone profit at all — even before resolution? The Journal's “all of them lost” is a resolution-level statement. I went further and rebuilt each wallet's cost basis from every buy and sell during the month. Two wallets out of 34 show nominal positive round trips before close. Two wallets recorded tiny positive round trips, but the reviewed trading record does not support the advertised $100,000 win.
4. What does the retrieved trade record show about the video? The largest retrieved Yes fill was under $9, and total retrieved Yes-side volume for the month was under $90. The retrieved trade record contains no transaction of the advertised size. The note’s coverage limits are described below.
5. Was the ~1% price real? It was — but only in the last two days before close, after the price had fallen steadily from a Jan 21 high near 85% and the No outcome was already close to certain. There was no point earlier in the month when a “shrewd long-shot call” at that price was available.

The real market supports part of the Journal's account-level finding. Two wallets recorded tiny positive round trips, but the reviewed trading record does not support the advertised $100,000 win. The retrieved trade record contains no transaction of the advertised size, and the coverage limitations remain relevant. The one-cent price was a trading price, not a measured true probability, and it appeared only near the end of the market.

An exact match to the Journal's count. I get to 48; the Journal reported more than 50. The difference is unresolved. Trade-derived notional also runs about 18% below the market's reported aggregate volume, which shows that these public endpoints may not capture all activity.

Anything about what Makihara knew, was told, or was paid. Trading records do not answer that, and this note does not try to.

If you are a reporter working the New York investigation, or checking any other specific prediction-market claim, send it my way — For journalists. No charge.

• Katherine Long, Caitlin Ostroff, Neil Mehta and Brenna T. Smith, “They Looked Like They Were Getting Rich on Polymarket—but None of It Was Real,” The Wall Street Journal, June 20, 2026.
• New York City Council, announcement of the prediction-market marketing-practices investigation, Aug 12, 2026.
• Polymarket public data API — market will-trump-say-mcdonalds-in-january: full trade history and current Yes-token holders, retrieved Aug 16, 2026.