New details on a series of suspicious bets on the 2026 Ballon D’Or — widely considered the most prestigious individual award in soccer — suggest that four Polymarket accounts may have traded on advance knowledge of the results.
On Oct. 23, French media outlet Upside reported that activity on Polymarket suggested that the rankings of the top five players for the award may have been leaked before the award ceremony took place. On Oct. 26, Harry Kane was announced as the Ballon D’Or winner, followed in the rankings by Kylian Mbappe, Lamine Yamal, Rodri, and Lionel Messi. The Guardian reported Oct. 30 that the award’s organizer France Football had contacted the police about the suspicious activity.
Polymarket is blocked in France, after the country’s gambling regulator ordered internet service providers to stop allowing French users to visit the website. However, users have been known to use VPNs to circumvent Polymarket IP address blocking.
Four connected accounts
Betting and prediction market analysis firm BETINT published a report on the suspicious trades Monday. It identified four Polymarket accounts that showed signs of unusual activity. Three were linked to a shared crypto wallet, while a fourth made similar bets at similar times to the three linked accounts.
Together, the four accounts made $32,500 in profit.
“What sets this group apart is that it bet early, at low prices, through accounts tied together by money,” the report said. “We think it is likely they knew the result.”
BETINT co-founder Dan Zimmermann told InGame that the bets being split up between different accounts was a sign that someone wished to disguise their activity, raising questions of insider trading.
“The fact they used a shared funding source suggests some attempt to obscure the trades,” he said. “That’s not really consistent with normal bettors who were right.
“From a crypto forensic analyst perspective, it’s a very half-assed effort. Splitting wallets like this, perhaps an amateur insider would think it would help.”
Zimmermann said the early trades may be consistent with an “internal conversation,” or other forms of second-hand insider knowledge. The bets may have been placed by people who received insider knowledge, but are not directly insiders themselves. He noted that the size of the bets was also not as large as might be expected if the bettors were 100% certain of the outcome.
Outside of the linked accounts, BETINT noted that one new account won $112,000 by betting on Kane at an average of 64-cent odds, while an older account that correctly predicted the winner in 2024 and 2025 bet on Kane a minute before the vote closed.
The account that was linked to the other three by timing, not wallet, put its winnings into an NBA trade, cashed out of that bet at around half its original stake, and then withdrew with the money ultimately going to a Revolut account. BETINT noted that Revolut is required to perform various know-your-customer checks, meaning that it could likely identify the user in question.
The winnings for the accounts that were all directly tied to the single wallet remain in crypto wallets.
Big move in one market
One key finding was that it was this group of bettors who dramatically moved the odds of Real Madrid forward Kylian Mbappe finishing ahead of Barcelona winger Lamine Yamal on Oct. 9. The market moved from 27 cents to 46 cents that day with no accompanying news that appeared to explain the change. The change in price was notable enough to receive media attention at the time.
BETINT found that the linked accounts placed 96% of the money on Mbappe to finish higher during the day, putting $6,000 on a previously lightly traded market.
This means that while all five players’ placement in the final rankings were expected by the market by the time the results were announced, the users bought in at a time when the results still appeared particularly unlikely.
