Spotify confirmed it found artificial streaming on its service after Caleb Davies, a prominent Kalshi trader, raised alarms that Spotify chart-based prediction markets may have been manipulated, WIRED reported.
The episode shows the dumb but potent mechanism at work: if a betting contract pays out based on a music chart, a person with money on the outcome may have an incentive to buy fake streams and push a song up the ranking. Spotify confirmed fake streams, according to WIRED. It did not say who was responsible or whether the activity was connected to prediction-market trading.
Davies, a Minneapolis-based IT worker, told WIRED he has made an estimated $1.2 million across prediction platforms, including $414,000 from Kalshi culture markets. He said he tracks Spotify data every morning to build projections for music-chart wagers.
This summer, Davies began publishing what he said was evidence of bot-driven chart manipulation and contacted Spotify, Kalshi and Polymarket. The dispute escalated after “Earrings” by Malcolm Todd climbed to No. 1 on a Spotify chart. Davies wrote on X that the movement looked like “botting,” a term used for buying automated streams to inflate play counts.
Davies argued the jump was statistically implausible. He wrote that, based on Sunday-to-Monday changes in the data, Todd’s rise was an “11.24 sigma event,” which he described as roughly a 1 in 77 octillion random occurrence. That statistical framing is Davies’ claim, not Spotify’s.
Spotify spokesperson Laura Batey told WIRED that the company investigated suspected incidents Davies flagged and found artificial streaming. “All streaming services face ever-changing stream manipulation,” Batey said, adding that Spotify uses detection and mitigation systems and does not pay royalties tied to manipulated streams.
Spotify later adjusted the relevant chart, according to WIRED. The company removed more than 500,000 artificial streams, dropping Todd’s song from first place to fourth.
The correction came too late for at least one market. Kalshi had already resolved its contract in favor of traders who picked Todd’s song. Kalshi spokesperson Elisabeth Diana told WIRED that the company was in contact with Spotify and investigating.
Kalshi also made a presentation change after talking with Spotify. At Spotify’s request, Kalshi removed Spotify’s logo from markets tied to the company and changed wording that had suggested Spotify verified the chart results, WIRED reported.
Before Spotify confirmed fake streams, Kalshi enforcement head Robert DeNault told Davies that only Spotify could determine whether botting occurred, according to WIRED. DeNault also said there could be innocent explanations for the surge and suggested Kalshi traders might have been copying Polymarket traders.
Davies rejected that explanation, telling WIRED that Polymarket users did not profit from the alleged fraud because Malcolm Todd was not an option in Polymarket’s Spotify market. Polymarket spokesperson Annabel Walsh also disputed the theory, saying the scenario was not plausible for that reason. Polymarket said it is reviewing the broader streaming-manipulation issue and has not found immediate manipulation so far.
No one has identified the person or group behind the fake streams. Todd did not respond to WIRED’s request for comment, and WIRED reported there is no evidence suggesting he was involved.
Amanda Fischer, a former Securities and Exchange Commission chief of staff and now policy director and chief operating officer at Better Markets, told WIRED that platforms are not supposed to list contracts unless they determine the contracts are not readily susceptible to manipulation. She said the Spotify-chart market and other markets appear susceptible.
Davies told WIRED he is stepping away from chart-based markets despite past profits, saying he can no longer trade them.
This story draws on original reporting from WIRED.
