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A hairdryer was allegedly used to rig Polymarket bets on the weather at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, according to a report by The Telegraph. French authorities note that the official temperature readings at the airport spiked twice in the past month, reaching levels much higher than expected. On both occasions, gamblers on Polymarket appear to have walked away with thousands upon thousands of dollars by betting on those temperature fluctuations.
The gambling site relies on readings from temperature sensors, and the one at Charles de Gaulle airport is on a public road. This makes it easy to access. The operating theory is that someone snuck in and used a battery-powered hairdryer to bring the recorded temperature up well beyond the actual heat outside.
Meanwhile, the Polymarket page indicated less than a one percent chance of the airport exceeding a particular temperature. Successful bets on these fluctuations netted an unknown user around $34,000.
"In view of physical findings on one of our instruments and the analysis of sensor data, Météo-France was indeed led to file a complaint for alteration of the operation of an automated data processing system with the Air Transport Gendarmerie Brigade of Roissy," a spokesperson for France's official weather agency said.
There is no indication that Polymarket forced anyone to return their winnings, but the temperature sensor has been moved to a new location. The site is still running bets on the daily temperature in and around Paris.
It sucks that someone potentially tricked a temperature sensor with a hairdryer to scam actual gamblers out of potential winnings. However, this sort of thing should be expected when betting money on real-world scenarios like this. If something can be rigged, and there's money to be made, it'll get rigged. Humans are gonna human.
This does, however, shine a light on the types of bets that should be allowed on sites like Polymarket and Kalshi. Polymarket, for instance, hosts numerous bets on the outcome of wars, whether or not countries will receive nuclear weapons and potential prison sentences, among many other sensitive topics. What happens when someone uses something much more dangerous than a hairdryer to change the outcome of something for financial gain?