Spotify Challenges $3 Million Song Bet Market After 500,000 Fake Streams Rigged Charts
Updated
Updated · Bloomberg · Jul 2
Spotify Challenges $3 Million Song Bet Market After 500,000 Fake Streams Rigged Charts
2 articles · Updated · Bloomberg · Jul 2
Summary
Spotify asked Kalshi and Polymarket to remove its logo and state they have no partnership with the streaming service after users manipulated chart rankings tied to prediction-market bets.
More than 500,000 artificial streams pushed Malcolm Todd’s “Earrings” into one of Spotify’s most popular songs, according to a person familiar with the matter, and Spotify later removed those plays.
Those inflated numbers had already been used to settle a Kalshi market on the most-streamed Spotify song in the US in June, a contract that drew $3 million in trading.
The dispute links music-chart manipulation directly to financial wagering, raising pressure on prediction platforms whose markets can be influenced by activity on third-party services.