France Football contacted the police following an inquiry by French media outlet Upside, which uncovered a coordinated betting pattern on the cryptocurrency platform Polymarket. Twelve accounts registered in October placed over $264,000 in wagers precisely predicting the top five order of Harry Kane, Kylian Mbappé, Lamine Yamal, Rodri, and Lionel Messi. Seven of these accounts had never participated in any other betting markets, and six placed their initial wagers within 15 minutes of registration. Upside traced a funding transaction to a French platform that identified the individual behind one key account, handing the findings over to Groupe Amaury.
Key points
France Football contacted law enforcement due to mounting concerns that award results wer…: France Football contacted law enforcement due to mounting concerns that award results were leaked prior to the ceremony.
Media investigators traced account funding to a French platform that verified the identit…: Media investigators traced account funding to a French platform that verified the identity of a participating individual.
The wagers successfully and precisely predicted the exact finishing order of the top five…: The wagers successfully and precisely predicted the exact finishing order of the top five Ballon d'Or contenders.
Sources checked by our analysis pipeline: 1
A series of suspicious bets that correctly predicted the exact top-five finishing order of this year’s Ballon d’Or and generated almost $200,000 (£149,000) in winnings is being investigated by the event’s organisers, France Football, who have also contacted the police.
It has been alleged that 12 Polymarket accounts – an American cryptocurrency-based prediction market – placed the bets, with more than $264,000 wagered on the outcome before Monday’s ceremony. Their extraordinary accuracy has raised serious questions about a potential leak of confidential results before football’s most prestigious individual award. Harry Kane was crowned the winner at the ceremony at the London Palladium, finishing ahead of Kylian Mbappé, Lamine Yamal, Rodri and Lionel Messi. Remarkably, this was the exact order predicted by the group of accounts identified in French media outlet Upside’s investigation.
According to Raphaël Pautard, the co-founder of Upside, his team identified 12 Polymarket accounts created between 1 October and 20 October. The accounts displayed strikingly similar patterns of activity, leading investigators to suspect they could be connected to the same individual or group. Seven of the 12 accounts…
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