A low-angle view of the Eiffel Tower, partially framed by flowering branches below a blue sky dotted with clouds in Paris, France, on April 10, 2026.
Riccardo Milani/AFP by way of Getty Images
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Riccardo Milani/AFP by way of Getty Images
A hair dryer? A lighter? A fortunate coincidence?
Authorities in France are investigating attainable tampering with a weather monitoring machine at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris after an uncommon temperature spike was recorded across the identical time a Polymarket dealer cashed in.
An nameless dealer with the username “xX25Xx” has drawn scrutiny from analysts and fellow merchants on Polymarket, the place folks can bet on issues like a metropolis’s high temperature and different real-world occasions.
The dealer bet $119 that the weather in Paris on April 15 would leap previous the equal of 64 levels Fahrenheit, and weather fanatics on-line seen a sudden spike in temperature on that day. Thanks to the sudden rise in temperature, the dealer netted $21,398 in revenue.
The Polymarket dealer’s bets earlier than they deleted their account. Accessed by way of the WayBack Machine.
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When local meteorologists ruled out that the temperature anomaly had occurred naturally, the Polymarket dealer deleted their account.
The French weather service, Météo-France, mentioned it filed a grievance with airport police about attainable tampering with its gear, French broadcaster BFM TV reported.
Météo-France and the airport police didn’t reply to NPR’s request for remark.
While authorities in Paris are nonetheless investigating what occurred, weather watchers and Polymarket merchants on on-line boards have raised two potentialities for the way the temperature might have been raised: a lighter or a battery-powered hairdryer.
The anomalous weather spike in comparison with one other weather sensor in Paris.
Bubblemaps
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Bubblemaps
“Love it!” wrote a Discord consumer who goes by Vince, who often trades on weather on Polymarket. “I’ve got to have one of those cordless hair dryers with a cord that connects to a weather station!”
Another consumer referred to as Sakuku on Discord quipped: “The good old ‘blowdrier with heat setting on the publicly-accessible weather monitoring station near the airport’ scam,” they wrote. “It’s a classic.”
An analysis by the French analytics agency Bubblemaps discovered that no different weather station within the space recorded the temperature spike, and that the profitable bet from the Polymarket dealer in query was 20 instances bigger than their typical wager.
Polymarket didn’t return a request for remark.
Prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi permit folks to place bets on every aspect of modern life, from what phrases President Trump will utter to the timing of navy strikes in Iran and the result of elections.
As the websites have exploded in reputation, tales have circulated of merchants going to extraordinary lengths to seek out an edge, like standing outdoors of the Super Bowl stadium to record the length of the national anthem and looking by means of the software program code of a musician’s web site to seek for document sale bulletins that aren’t but public.
There even have been a number of high-profile cases of suspected insider buying and selling, like when a trader made more than $500,000 betting on the ousting of Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro and the precise timing an Iran ceasefire could be introduced. Going again additional, prediction market analysts have recognized a dealer who seems to have profited handsomely from having advance knowledge of the pardons former President Biden granted in his remaining hours in workplace.
In the face of what seems to be the abuse and manipulation of those prediction markets, lawmakers have proposed a flurry of actions to rein within the websites and dozens of states have launched lawsuits aiming to have the apps regulated as playing companies.
Right now, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission oversees the business, with the Trump administration embracing a light-touch strategy to the norm-busting corporations.
The French weather bet occurred on Polymarket’s unregulated abroad change, which is barely accessible by U.S. merchants with a digital non-public community.
Polymarket’s website shows it’s now not counting on the Charles de Gaulle weather sensor information and is as an alternative utilizing information from a tool on the Paris–Le Bourget Airport to settle bets.
