Spotify removes half a million streams after suspicious Kalshi bet

In early July 2026, Spotify removed about 500,000 streams from Malcolm Todd's song "Earrings". The track suspiciously quickly reached the top of the US daily chart, in the same period that a bet on its reaching the top opened on the Kalshi prediction platform. The company also said it will demand that Kalshi and another major prediction market, Polymarket, remove its logo from their sites.

How Spotify detected the manipulation

The sudden rise of a little-known track would not have looked unusual on its own, were it not for the exact timing. The Kalshi bet was placed before "Earrings" shot up to first place on the US daily chart, and it was this coincidence that alerted Spotify's moderators.

Music streaming has long fought stream inflation: bots and listening "farms" have existed since the first streaming services appeared. But this case stands out. The financial motive was documented publicly, right in the Kalshi interface: anyone could see that somebody had put money on "Earrings" succeeding on the chart. That meant interested parties had a direct financial incentive to organize the inflation, and the payoff was visible in advance.

Following its investigation, Spotify deemed about 500,000 streams invalid and removed them from its statistics.

• About 500,000 streams removed as artificially inflated
• Malcolm Todd's track "Earrings" sharply rose to the top of the US daily chart
• The Kalshi bet appeared before the track's sharp climb; this coincidence triggered the investigation
• Spotify's demands also name Polymarket, the second leading US prediction platform

What did Spotify demand from Kalshi and Polymarket?

Removing the streams was not the end of it. Spotify sent formal demands to both leading US prediction markets, Kalshi and Polymarket. The company demanded that they remove its logo from both sites and state explicitly that neither platform is an official Spotify partner, receives licensed data from it, or has any official connection to its charts.

In essence, both platforms used the Spotify brand as the underlying asset for their bets without any agreement with the company. Kalshi and Polymarket have de facto turned music chart positions into a tradable instrument, without asking permission from the platform whose data determines the outcome of the bet.

Prediction markets are financial venues where users bet on the outcomes of real-world events: elections, sports results, asset prices. Kalshi became the first US service to receive federal approval for such operations. Both services have been actively expanding their offerings in recent years: after the high-profile success of bets on US presidential elections, they moved into pop culture, sports and entertainment, including music charts and box office.

What this means

The "Earrings" incident exposed a systemic vulnerability: prediction markets create a new vector for chart manipulation with a publicly documented financial incentive. Previously, stream manipulation was merely a reputational risk with no obvious beneficiary; now participants stand to make a clear monetary gain that can be tracked in advance.

Streaming platforms will have to monitor not only suspicious spikes in listening but also activity on prediction markets in real time.