Ballon d'Or 2026: Suspicious $264,000 Bets Reignite Leak Suspicions

Five days after Harry Kane’s victory at the 70th Ballon d’Or ceremony in London, an investigation by financial media specialist Upside Media raises serious suspicions of a leak regarding the award’s rankings. At the heart of the matter: twelve accounts opened on the decentralized betting platform Polymarket, which wagered $264,000 on the exact top 5 of the trophy — Kane, Mbappé, Lamine Yamal, Rodri, Messi — before the prize was even announced.

According to Upside Media’s analysis, these accounts “generated nearly $200,000 in winnings without a single losing bet on their recorded positions.” A result that, according to the media outlet, cannot be explained by chance alone and suggests that their owners had access to confidential information about the final rankings.

Commentator Daniel Riolo publicly reacted to these revelations, believing that clarification is necessary: “There is a suspicion and what you’re revealing is pushing me to ask France Football for an explanation. The way the bets came in and the amount is too strange.” Journalist Romain Molina agrees, arguing that “at minimum” the magazine must “open an internal investigation to try to find out what happened.”

Contacted by Upside Media, France Football has so far provided no response. An attitude that Molina finds concerning: “The lack of response from the organizers, when normally this should be their priority… This entire affair is based on a lack of transparency. It’s so serious that normally they should speak about it immediately.”

Upside Media also traced the financial flows that funded the suspicious accounts. Its investigations point to a French platform, Deblock, which confirmed it holds the client’s identity but invoked regulatory reasons to refuse to disclose it.

The media intends to continue its investigation and convince the judiciary to take up the case, recalling that insider trading is punishable in France by five years imprisonment and €100 million in fines.