Singer Malcolm Todd reached his first No. 1 on Spotify’s U.S. Daily Top Songs chart in late June with his 2024 song “Earrings.” Days later, however, Spotify removed more than 500,000 streams from the song after determining they were artificially generated, following concerns that the spike in streams was intended to influence betting on Kalshi’s music prediction market.

The removal caused “Earrings” to fall from the top position on Spotify’s U.S. chart down to No. 4.  A Spotify spokesperson said in a statement to CBS News that Spotify has systems in place to detect artificial streaming activity.

“Spotify has best-in-class detection and mitigation practices for manipulated streams, and we don’t pay out associated royalties”

Before Spotify removed the streams, Kalshi had already paid out the people who had bet on Todd going No. 1. In a statement to WIRED, a Kalshi spokesperson said the company is working to investigate what happened.

“We’re in touch with Spotify and are actively investigating this matter”

Questions about the song’s sudden influx in streaming began after prediction market trader Caleb Davies noticed an increase in streams overnight between June 28 and 29. Davies took to social media to publicly question these streams and contacted both Spotify and Kalshi.

This incident has drawn more attention to the growing phenomenon of prediction markets. These markets first gained popularity as people were betting on elections, sports, and economics, but the casual gambling has expanded into entertainment, allowing users to bet on everything from reality dating show winners to how much a film will make at the box office.

As these prediction markets expand, so do their marketing campaigns. Advertisements promoting betting on pop culture and current events have become unavoidable on platforms like TikTok and YouTube, giving event-based betting a broader audience than traditional sports betting.

The controversy around “Earrings” and fraudulent streams brings up a new challenge for the music industry. Chart manipulation and artificial streams have always been around; however, these betting platforms bring financial incentive that goes beyond the artist and their label.