Music streaming platform Spotify has been forced to act in the face of large-scale listening manipulation. Of the streams frauduleux were removed from the song Earrings by artist Malcolm Todd.
This intervention followed a suspicious surge in the stock, which coincided with abnormal betting activity on prediction markets like Kalshi.
How was the fraud discovered?
The alert was raised by an experienced trader on prediction markets who made his fortune on these platforms. He noticed the meteoric and statistically improbable rise of Earrings. Convinced of fraud, he contacted Spotify and the betting platforms.
As we await the final June Spotify update, one last look at how unlikely yesterday’s Earrings surge was to have occurred by chance. Looking at the dataset of Sunday to Monday changes, it was a 11.24 sigma event, or a roughly 1 in 77 octillion chance of happening randomly. pic.twitter.com/Mklz784UDo
— Gaeten Dugas (@GaetenD) July 1, 2026
” All streaming services face ever-changing stream manipulation. Spotify has best practices for detection and mitigation “, Spotify told Wired.
Spotify finally removed more than 500,000 artificial tapsdropping the song from first to fourth place.
A considerable financial stake
Traders on Kalshi had bet on Malcolm Todd’s unlikely success, with an initial probability estimated at just 2.5%. The potential gain was huge, representing a return on investment of around 20 times the initial stake for punters who bet on this outcome.
By the time Spotify corrected its rankings, Kalshi had already validated the bets and paid the winners. While no direct evidence links punters to the manipulation, the coincidence prompted Spotify to ask Kalshi and Polymarket to remove its logo from their platforms.
A spokeswoman for Kalshi said Kalshi is in contact with Spotify and is actively investigating this matter.
Bets too easily manipulated?
This incident highlights the growing vulnerability of public data to lucrative manipulation. It comes in a context of increased surveillance of prediction markets, often criticized for their potential for abuse.
