- Changing the weather to win a gamble seems like a stretch, but apparently it can be done.
Online gambling has exploded over the last decade. If you can bet money on something, you can bet there’s a way to do that on some internet gambling platform.
Of course, whenever there’s a chance to win money, you’ll see cheaters rear their ugly heads. They’re ready to manipulate any variable to increase their chance of winning big.
That includes the weather.
Of course, not even the most crooked gambler can control the weather. But they can control the devices used to measure it.
In France, the national weather forecasting service noticed some bizarre readings on some of their instruments located in Paris. They first chalked it up to equipment failure and sent in a maintenance crew.
The engineers, however, noticed some suspicious signs around the sensors. At the same time, the weather service noted that someone was winning a lot of money by betting on unreasonable temperatures.
Conclusion? Someone must’ve tampered with the forecasting instruments to win by gambling on the weather. The forecasting service has now submitted a complaint to the police, who have launched an investigation.
Temperature Spike
Météo-France is France’s national weather forecasting service. To carry out its public duty, the organization maintains high-accuracy weather sensors throughout France.
One suite of such instruments is located at the Charles de Gaulle Airport, just outside Paris. On April 6 and 15, the temperature sensor went haywire.
On both occasions, it had been a mild spring day in Paris, with the temperatures hovering just above 64 degrees Fahrenheit all through the afternoon. Suddenly, at 9:30 p.m. in both cases, the reading changed drastically.
Within a matter of minutes, the temperature indicated by the Charles de Gaulle sensors climbed to nearly 72 degrees. Just as quickly, it then fell down roughly 60.
Well, that wasn’t normal. Weather experts initially believed that the instruments had malfunctioned.
“When the information came out, we all thought it was a sensor drift. Then, we suspected a maintenance problem,” Sebasten Brana, the vice president of climate observation group Infoclimat, told Le Monde.
After the second incident on April 15, Météo-France sent a repair crew out to fix the insane sensor. They, however, found “physical evidence” that someone had tampered with the instruments.
What was going on?
Big Wins
Météo-France launched an investigation. That quickly led them to the online gambling platform Polymarket.
Polymarket is a bit unusual in that it doesn’t focus on your usual form of gambling (like horse races and so on). Instead, you can gamble on pretty much anything, from the results of elections to developments of ongoing wars and, indeed, weather.
On April 6 and 15, there had been a curious development on the site. A user going by the nickname “xX25Xx” had placed a bet on the temperature in Paris rising above 66 degrees on both days.
Now, while that can certainly happen, it would’ve been an unusually warm day. And indeed, on both occasions, nothing indicated that the temperature would climb that high.
Until it got to the weird spike at 9:30 p.m. — well after the sun had set.
Our online gambler had placed very high bets on the weather. They’d put down around $120, which was roughly 20 times more than they usually bet.
And with the bizarre reading from Charles de Gaulle, those bets paid off. Thanks to the temperature spike, xX25Xx walked away with more than $20,000 on both days.
Clear Tampering
According to Météo-France, this case is clear-cut. Either xX25Xx themselves or someone working with them must have fiddled with the Charles de Gaulle temperature sensor to skew the readings and win big on unreasonable bets, the organization alleges.
That seems like a reasonable suspicion, considering the signs of tampering Météo-France found. Additionally, no other temperature sensors in France reported such strange readings.
How the crooks may have heated up the sensors hasn’t been disclosed to the public. However, according to French media, the trick could have been done with a lighter or a battery-powered hair dryer.
For now, Météo-France has filed a complaint with France’s police, and they’ve launched an investigation. Polymarket, for its part, has stopped using the Charles de Gaulle weather sensors for its bets.
Instead, its website shows that it’s now watching the instruments at the Paris-Le Bourget Airport. Here’s hoping those are better guarded.