Insider trading scandal erupts around the Ballon d’Or
When the result was revealed, the Ballon d’Or gave its verdict: the vote organised by France Football placed Harry Kane in first place, Kylian Mbappé in second, Lamine Yamal in third, Rodri in fourth and Lionel Messi in fifth, sparking an insider‑trading scandal.
The financial account Upside had previously published the ranking, even before the ceremony, highlighting an emerging scandal. According to Upside, the Ballon d’Or top‑5 was the subject of massive bets on the predictive‑markets platform Polymarket. This revelation immediately fed suspicions of manipulation.
Bet of several hundred thousand
Investigators noted $264,000 injected through twelve suspect accounts created hastily in October. Seven of them never bet on other subjects, while six placed large sums only fifteen minutes after signing up, targeting exclusively the Ballon d’Or ranking.
A bettor under the pseudonym kraben006 first won on Harry Kane’s victory, then reinvested everything on the exact positions of the ranking. His combo – Mbappé second, Yamal third, Rodri fourth and Messi fifth – reached a probability of seventy‑two percent a few days before the ceremony, revealing perfect knowledge of the result.
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Chief editor’s reactions
Asked by Brut this weekend, the chief editor of France Football, Vincent Garcia, admitted the risk of a leak as soon as several people are involved. “That is to say, from the moment there are three, five people in the loop, the risk of a leak is not zero,” he said, highlighting the vote’s vulnerability.
In 2024, an early leak of Rodri’s triumph over Vinícius Jr triggered a diplomatic earthquake, prompting Real Madrid to boycott the ceremony. The organisers then tightened their procedures, promising to inform the winner only at the very last minute, a promise now broken.
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Blockchain anonymity still protects bettors’ identities, but the perfect execution of the scenario on Polymarket eliminates any intuition hypothesis. The Ballon d’Or faces an unprecedented sealing crisis, where leaks no longer serve only the press but generate colossal profits, calling the vote’s credibility into question.