Spotify Purges 500,000 Streams Linked to Prediction Market Betting

The song "Earrings" plummeted to fourth place following the audit, which confirmed that botted listens inflated the track's popularity. Spotify stated it maintains rigorous detection protocols to mitigate such manipulation and refuses to pay royalties on fraudulent activity. The artist himself is not suspected of orchestrating the scheme, according to reports from the Financial Times.

Suspicion originally mounted among rival traders on prediction markets who tracked anomalous spikes in Spotify data. In late June, Todd’s song saw a 70 percent increase in chart performance within a single 24-hour window, despite having only a 2.5 percent probability of reaching the top spot on Kalshi just days prior. Following the investigation, Spotify demanded that both Polymarket and Kalshi remove company logos from their platforms to clarify that no official partnerships exist. Both betting exchanges are currently reviewing the allegations as they grapple with the broader challenge of market manipulation within their systems.