
Robinhood is widening its prediction-market lineup beyond sports, with crypto-linked event contracts already commanding an outsized share of activity on the platform. CEO Vlad Tenev said as much, according to Zacks Investment Research, and he expects sports to eventually make up a minority of the business. The mix shift comes as the product’s scale becomes hard to ignore: event-contract revenue hit $156 million in the second quarter and contracts traded reached a record 13.6 billion.
Robinhood has previously called prediction markets its fastest-growing product line by revenue, and the second-quarter figures back that up – both revenue and volume climbed more than tenfold year over year. In June, the company began routing event contracts to Rothera, described by Zacks as a CFTC-licensed exchange and clearinghouse independently managed through Robinhood’s joint venture with Susquehanna International Group. Rothera generated $17 million of that quarter’s event-contract revenue. Robinhood has also added other routing relationships, including Crypto.com’s prediction-market infrastructure, per the Zacks report, as it builds out a broader ecosystem rather than leaning on a single venue.
Sports Contracts Remain the Legal Flashpoint
The push into crypto and economic contracts lands against a messy legal backdrop for sports-related event trading. Missouri has ordered Robinhood and other operators to stop offering sports event contracts without a state sports-wagering license, and the company is separately appealing litigation in Michigan. In its Nevada case, the Ninth Circuit affirmed in August the denial of preliminary relief, prompting Robinhood to petition the U.S. Supreme Court.
Diversifying into non-sports categories wouldn’t erase that regulatory exposure, but it could reduce how much of Robinhood’s fastest-growing product line depends on the category drawing the sharpest state-level scrutiny. It also fits Robinhood’s broader push to expand into economic event contracts tied to Federal Reserve decisions, giving customers more reasons to keep trading beyond stocks and options – a factor that matters for a company chasing higher revenue per user.
Interactive Brokers and Coinbase Are Chasing the Same Customers
Robinhood isn’t building this alone. Interactive Brokers has assembled a unified interface spanning Kalshi, CME Group and its own ForecastEx platform, letting customers compare liquidity and trade contracts alongside stocks, options, futures and crypto. Coinbase is folding prediction markets into its broader Everything Exchange strategy, having launched with Kalshi-sourced contracts before expanding into economics, sports and company-specific markets – a business where contracts and revenue rose 106% sequentially in the second quarter.
That leaves product breadth, liquidity and pricing as the likely deciding factors in who captures engagement. For Robinhood, the test now is whether non-sports contracts can keep growing fast enough to offset the regulatory drag on sports – without slowing the business down in the process.
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