Shill

A shill can be described as someone on intentionally acts as a decoy and/or tricks people by enticing them to purchase a certain product or service, while secretly working for the company or salesman who provides that very same product or service.

The shill, or accomplice, will pose as a genuine customer and con others by either recommendation or words of encouragement towards purchasing those things. Moreover, they will publicly display a good impression of whatever or whomever they are shilling for.

A good and well-known example of “shilling” occurs when carnival workers would act as members of the audience.

Shills on Wallstreetbets

“A shill”, “to shill” or “shilling for something” are common everyday expressions in the lexicon of Reddit’s /r/wallstreetbets users but can also be found on other investment forums and social media platforms alike.

Those online investment communities are experts on identifying and outing “shills” and their specific agendas as soon as they are posted. Normally, shills will encourage investors to purchase shares from specific companies (usually claiming an imminent short squeeze) or, on the contrary, they will spread Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (see FUD) in order to try to keep retail investors from buying certain stocks.

Shill Origin

The verb “to shill” can be traced to early 20^th century and its first usage was documented with having the exact same meaning as of today. Shills would be hired to con others and would pretend to win at casinos, buy tickets to a show, etc.

Shillaber may just be the root of the word, but etymologists have yet to find direct, definite evidence of its original form.