Spotify asks Kalshi, Polymarket to remove its logo

Spotify identified manipulated streaming activity and removed more than 500,000 artificial plays that had pushed Malcolm Todd’s single “Earrings” into one of its most-played charts. Those inflated counts were already used to settle a Kalshi market on the most-streamed U.S. song in June, a market that drew about $3 million in trading.

After purging the artificial streams, Spotify notified both prediction platforms and asked them to remove its logo and make clear they are not partners. Kalshi has opened an internal review of trades and chart movements tied to the contested market and is working with Spotify. Polymarket did not respond to requests for comment.

Kalshi declared winners based on chart figures published before Spotify finished its investigation. Before the suspicious plays appeared, odds for Todd finishing June as the top-streamed song on Kalshi were below 3%, which would have paid roughly 30 times a trader’s stake for those who bought at those prices.

Trader Caleb Davies publicly flagged the activity and criticized Kalshi for shifting responsibility toward another platform rather than addressing the irregularity and protecting users. Kalshi says it is reviewing trade history and platform controls.

Spotify declined to pay royalties on the identified artificial streams and said it uses detection and mitigation systems to identify and remove manipulated plays. In a statement, the company added that streaming platforms regularly confront new methods used to inflate play counts.

Observers and regulators have previously examined cases in which altered public data or digital artifacts affected prediction markets. Past incidents cited include an edited interactive map tied to a territorial bet and an investigation into whether weather-station data was tampered with for a market on Paris temperatures.

Kalshi has not announced final remedies. Possible responses under review include voiding affected contracts, adjusting settlements or strengthening controls to detect coordinated attempts to alter measurable outcomes. Polymarket’s exposure appears limited to markets that used the same streaming data; the extent of any affected contracts has not been detailed publicly.

Spotify’s request that the platforms remove its logo and clarify they are not partners follows its removal of the artificial streams and its decision not to pay royalties on those plays.