Ololade Adeyanju/
Spotify has removed more than 500,000 fake streams of a song that unexpectedly reached number one on its US chart, after discovering unusual activity linked to suspicious betting on prediction platform, Kalshi.
According to the Financial Times (FT), the streaming platform found that many of the plays for “Earrings”, an indie pop song by singer-songwriter, Malcolm Todd, had been generated by bots programmed to play the track repeatedly and artificially inflate its popularity.
The song, originally released in 2024, recorded a nearly 70 per cent increase in US streams between Sunday and Monday, briefly making it the most-streamed song on Spotify in the United States.
After investigating, Spotify removed the suspected fake streams and issued revised charts on Wednesday.
The correction meant the song should have ranked fourth instead of first on Monday.
However, the revision came too late to affect betting results on Kalshi, where traders had already been paid after wagering that Todd would have a number one Spotify song in the US before the end of June.
Before the chart upset, the betting market had placed the chances of such an outcome at only about 2.5 per cent. Those who backed the unlikely result reportedly earned returns of around 20 times their original stake.
There is no evidence that Todd or his management team were involved in any attempt to manipulate streaming figures.
The unusual betting patterns were first highlighted by Kalshi trader, Caleb Davies, who disclosed details of the wagers in a post on X.
The incident has intensified concerns that prediction markets are becoming vulnerable to insider trading and market manipulation, particularly when outcomes can be influenced by artificial activity.
Such concerns have surfaced before. In April, US prosecutors charged Gannon Ken Van Dyke with allegedly making more than 400,000 dollars through bets on a planned operation involving Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.
Van Dyke has pleaded not guilty.
Also in April, France’s national weather service filed a police complaint after detecting irregularities in temperature readings in Paris that coincided with unusually accurate bets on another prediction platform.
Artificially inflating streaming numbers has long been a challenge for music platforms.
Fraudsters often use bots to increase plays and generate higher royalty payments, particularly for lesser-known songs.
Industry experts say the rapid growth of AI tools capable of producing music within minutes has made the problem even more difficult to tackle.
Spotify said streaming manipulation continues to evolve but insisted it has strong systems in place to detect fraudulent activity and does not pay royalties for fake streams.
Kalshi said it was working closely with Spotify and investigating the matter.
The dispute has also exposed growing friction between prediction market operators and the companies whose data they rely on.
Spotify has asked Kalshi to remove its logo from the betting platform, while Kalshi has added a disclaimer stating that its products are not endorsed by Spotify.
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