Photo Credit: Markus Winkler

We’ve heard plenty about streaming fraudsters gaming the system to pocket royalties. But what about using artificial plays to cash bets? Spotify has reportedly booted north of 500,000 fake streams from Malcolm Todd’s “Earrings” after learning of several curiously timed wagers tied to the song’s chart positioning.

Spotify just recently confirmed identifying “stream manipulation” on the TikTok-viral track, after ticked-off bettors (or traders, to use their preferred term) criticized its 11th-hour play-count spike.

(An important, though admittedly obvious, parenthetical: Todd and his team aren’t alleged to have had a hand in or knowledge of the allegedly fake streams.)

As summed up on social media, fans were specifically taking to Kalshi to bet on which artist would have the top song on Spotify U.S. in June. Drake, Olivia Dean, and Michael Jackson were in the running, and Drake’s odds of winning were hovering around 70% as of June 30th, a screenshot shows.

Consequently, those who’d bet on the chart result were far from thrilled – and more than a little suspicious – when a last-second jump (to the tune of a 70% streams hike between Sunday and Monday) propelled “Earrings” to the lead.

From there, the heavy dog cashed, the Kalshi payouts commenced, and a chorus of criticism followed. As noted, Spotify did pinpoint streaming manipulation, axe somewhere in the ballpark of half a million “Earrings” plays by the Financial Times’ count, and acknowledge the development in a statement.

“All streaming services face ever-changing stream manipulation,” the DSP said. “Spotify has best in class detection and mitigation practices for manipulated streams, and we don’t pay out associated royalties.”

That is, of course, a good thing; Spotify has been comparatively quick to spot and decommission largescale fraud operations in the past as well.

Nevertheless, it’s not necessarily a victory for the purportedly shortchanged bettors, one of whom vented that “Kalshi did pay out the market based on fraudulent results” – meaning before Spotify trimmed the streams in question. Others, for their part, weighed in with similar comments.

On Kalshi’s end, the New York City-headquartered company in a statement said it was “in touch with Spotify” and “actively investigating this matter.”

The “in touch” update appears to be technically true: According to the FT, Spotify, which certainly isn’t benefiting from the current coverage, called on Kalshi to remove its (Spotify’s) logo from the platform.

Per the same outlet, Kalshi has also added a disclaimer clarifying that its offerings “have not been endorsed by Spotify.” But at the time of this writing, said disclaimer didn’t look to be live on individual prediction pages.

In any event, especially with Meta developing a wagering/prediction app of its own, the coming months seem poised to bring additional chart-focused action (and probably a good bit of controversy).

(Regarding July’s Spotify U.S. top-song odds, Future’s currently leading the pack, ahead of Morgan Wallen and then Taylor Swift. Per the Kalshi page’s comments, bettors and prospective bettors are well aware of the “Earrings” bot streams – with one describing illicit plays as simply adding “another layer” to the wagering experience.)

More pressingly, the episode is a good reminder that manipulation can and apparently does affect both well-known releases as well as AI slop. That reality raises multiple questions – including, at the top level, about how many active stateside accounts are powering fake play operations today.